INTRODUCTION
EN227 WEEK ONE
CLOSE READING
• Wikipedia: “Close reading describes, in literary
criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a
brief passage of text. Such a reading places great
emphasis on the single particular over the general,
paying close attention to individual words, syntax,
and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold
as they are read.:
• (See also: “practical criticism”)
SOME NOTES ON METANARRATIVES
• Central point: best essays and exams construct
narratives out of detail, rather than other way
around
• I will say this again: text first, context second
• The way to focus on details is to “read” them:
produce extended interpretations of them
GENRE, INTERVENTION, DETAIL
• Often the hardest question: “why is this a poem?”
• Every literary work an intervention in a genre
• Choice of poetry often taken for granted
• Key to this course: individual detail vs. grand
narrative
• We will come to the course narratives later, once we have
details down
• A literary text should be able to surprise us
• Course synthesis
• Exam and essays will ask about the period; but you must
answer these questions via small details
A PLEA FOR THE BASICS
• The best reading addresses the most basic, and so
fundamental, aspects of poetry
• As a researcher, I find myself reading and rereading basic guides to poetry
• Continually undoing our training in how to read
poetry—and, indeed, how to read
THE POEM AND ITS TEXT
TO BE CONSIDERED FIRST
LANGUAGE
• GO HERE FIRST
• “Close reading”/”practical criticism”
•
•
•
•
Polyvalence (multiple meanings)
Clarification (single meanings)
Nonsense (meaninglessness)
Sound
• Repetition
• Beginning of words
• End of words
• Middle of words
• Rhyme
PERFORMANCE
• Oral presence
• Are speeches hard, or even impossible, to say out loud?
• Do the speeches arrange speech in particular ways?
• Is there a rhythm to the words, or some other oral ordering?
• Embodiment
• Does the poem intend that any particular sort of person say
the poem?
• Does the poem describe a speaker, and if so that speaker’s
body?
PERFORMANCE
• Audience
• Is the poem’s speaker addressing a particular person, or
people, within the poem?
• Does the poem agree or disagree with these people?
• Is the poem meant to be popular—for a nation, say—or to
speak to a small audience?
• Is it written as though it is expecting itself to be heard, or not?
• On a different level: is/was the poem itself addressed to
particular people? How does their presence appear within
the poem?
FORM
• How is the poem divided?
• Lines
• How long, and what metric? (e.g. how are sounds organized
within the line?)
• Is there a structure by which lines refer to each other—rhyme,
say, or the repetition of sounds?
• What units are the lines divided into? What can we say
about these units?
THE POEM AND ITS
CONTEXT*
TO BE CONSIDERED SECOND
*Historical context, tradition, relationship to other poems, place in
anthology…
TYPE OF POEM
• Genre and literary period
• How does this poem compare with other poems of its type?
• How does it compare with other poems of this type from this
period?
• How does it compare with its period more generally?
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• When was the poem written, and where?
• Was the poem written for particular publisher, group,
person?
• How do elements of this historical period appear
within the poem?
• What is the poem’s attitude, or attitudes, towards its time?
• Popularity
• Was the poem written for a wide or a specific audience?
POLITICS
• What do we mean by politics?
• Then: how does this “politics” appear within the
poem?
• Politics
•
•
•
•
Conservative?
Emergent or progressive?
Incoherent?
Some combination of all of these?
“THE AUTHOR”
• GO HERE LAST, IF AT ALL
• What do we mean when we say “the author”?
• How does the poem relate to this author’s other works?
• How is “the author” present in the poem, if at all?