Writing about literature, like expository essay writing, follows a standard format: one-inch margins, double-spaced, etc. But it differs in select areas.
Verb tense:
Discussions of literature use the present tense in order to indicate that the circumstances depicted in the literature always exist in the present.
Quotations:
Because a main focus of literature is the use of language, essays about literature should generally have quotes from the original text whenever possible to let the author’s words help to make your point. Summaries work well to explain plot developments and paraphrases can effectively present simple ideas. But when ideas and impressions depend upon subtleties of language, you should use the author’s own words. Importantly, however, you should never simply quote a line or passage and expect readers to understand your point automatically. Rather, you should first introduce the quotation and direct your reader’s attention, then, after the quotation, you should provide a brief analysis of the quote—not merely a restatement of the quote.
In-text quotations:
Prose (short fiction, essays, and novels) requires citation by page number and author or if author is referred to in the introduction to the quote, use page number only.
Poetry (both short and long) requires citation by line number and author’s name only (unless author is referenced in introduction to quote).
Drama (both short and long as well as classic and contemporary) requires citation by act and scene. If a play is written in verse, as many classic plays are, they also require line numbers.
A desperate, ordinary man, Willy Loman asserts his imagined uniqueness: “I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman” (2.1421).
Hamlet’s now-famous musings include “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (1.5.166-67).
When using a long quote from prose, four or more typed lines use a block quote format. Block quotes are set off from the body of the paragraph by indenting 10 spaces from the left margin (the right margin is not indented) and single-space entire quote, but do not enclose it in quotation marks. At the end of quote put the page number in parentheses. Do not indent the paragraph line immediately after the quote; simply continue your paragraph.
Block quotes for poetry, when quoting three or more lines of poetry, follow the pattern for prose block quotes: indent 10 spaces, single-space the lines, and omit quotation marks. However, follow the format of the poet as exactly as possible, paying careful attention to punctuation, placement, etc.
In “Poem (1),” Langston Hughes offers a spare, critical assessment of western culture:
I am afraid of this civilization—
So hard,
So strong,
So cold. (4-7)
In only twelve words, Hughes provides a sharp, insightful look at the world around him.
Much of this information comes from The Little English Handbook, eighth edition, eds. Edward Corbett and Sheryl Finkle. Longman publs. NY 1998