A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

A professor finds himself attracted to one of his students, allowing her to skip the final exams - but her resultant grade causes her to lash out at him and reveal harsh truths about his own life that he finds difficult to accept.

A woman grows obsessed with a single book from the time she is a young adult to her death in old age, as the book's meaning changes for her over time.

A high school English teacher copes with his disappointing reality by imagining a secret life for himself at a distinguished university campus - but he is shocked and furious when one of the students that he looks down upon has a similar method of escapism.

A man in a failing marriage embarks on yet another love affair with a married woman, teaching him about his own sexual escapist tendencies.

When a librarian finds a moving book of poetry among a donation, she is introduced to fellow lovers of the author's work who strive to preserve the poet's desire for privacy while commemorating her work.

At the end of the world, a girl resolves to finish her English paper.

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,