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Writing Guide
8. Quoting your main text
When you are writing about a work of literature, you should always try to quote short extracts, phrases or lines from it in order to illustrate your points and give substance to your argument. This section discusses how to do so.
a) QUOTING POETRY. Poems are divided into lines, which are important to their rhythm. When quoting poetry you need to make clear where the line-breaks are. Remember that Shakespeare's plays, for example, are often written in poetry (i.e. blank verse) and, where this is the case, you again need to indicate the line-breaks, or set then out properly in an inset quotation. Here are some simple examples showing how to quote properly from the poem 'Vergissmeinnicht' by Keith Douglas. Here is stanza 5 of the poem as it looks in a book:
But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.
If you quote the whole of this stanza, the lines should appear as in the original book and also inset. Unlike the book, however, they should be double spaced. When quoting and insetting poetry, you must keep the original lineation, as this is part of the poem's effect.
If you were quoting just two lines of this poem or any other poem, you can keep it within your text, but you need to add in the sign / or to indicate the line-break. Example:
In the fifth stanza of the poem, Douglas heightens the alliteration and the linked vowels, suddenly raising the intensity of the language: 'But she would weep to see today how on his skin the swart flies move' (17–18). 'Weep' catches up the sound of 'swart' in an unusual and beautiful way. [etc.]
If you are quoting more than two lines of the poem, you will need (as in quoting criticism) to leave a free line and then inset the quotation. The line-breaks appear as in the original . After the quotation, you should leave another free line. In this way, the quotation is highlighted within the text. Example:
Douglas's poem moves to its climax in the fifth stanza, in which the language is heightened through alliteration and interlinked vowel sounds:
But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.
(17–20)
Here the 'ee' sound in 'weep' and 'see' links the words together, but there are other heightening effects. [etc.]
b) QUOTING PROSE WRITINGS AND NOVELS. Here the same rules apply as for quoting criticism. You do not need, however, as with poetry, to reproduce the original lineation. If the quotation is less than about 20 to 30 words, you can keep it in the body of your text. See the example in section 5b . If it is longer than about 20 to 30 words, it needs to be inset, as in section 5c .
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