TOURTELLOTTE MEMORIAL
HIGH SCHOOL
ENGLISH MANUAL
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GLOSSARY
STARTING THE WRITING PROCESS
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PARAGRAPHS
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TRANSITION WORDS AND PHRASES
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TRANSITIONAL DEVICES
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INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS
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CREATING A THESIS STATEMENT
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DEVELOPING A THESIS
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DEVELOPING AN OUTLINE
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THEMES
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UNIVERSAL THEMES IN LITERATURE
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WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE
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WRITING ABOUT FICTION
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HOW TO WRITE A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
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ANALYZING A RHETORICAL ARGUMENT
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WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
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WORDS TO DESCRIBE CHARACTERS
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ACTIVE VERBS
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GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS
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HELPFUL LINKS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
108
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Themes
While there are no infallible rules about inferring theme, there are several guidelines that
can help any reader discover this elusive element of fiction. Answers to these questions
will help.
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Has the main character changed in any way? If so, what has this character learned
about life?
What is the central conflict? What is its outcome?
How does the title relate to the meaning of the story?
Guidelines for Expressing Theme
1. Once you think you know what the main topic of the story is (for instance, loyalty
to country, motherhood, etc.), you need to express it in statement form. THEME
IS A STATEMENT ABOUT THIS TOPIC. Thus, the theme of a story might be,
“Loyalty to country sometimes requires self-sacrifice.”
2. Theme should be stated as a generalization about life. Do not use the names of the
characters or refer to precise places of events.
3. While themes are generalizations, readers must not make the generalization larger
than the story justifies. Beware of words like every, all, always. Terms like some,
sometimes, may are often more accurate.
4. THEME is the central and unifying concept of the story. Be sure that your
statement of theme
 Accounts for all the major details of the story
 Is not contradicted by any detail of the story
 Is based on data from the story itself and not on assumptions supplied
from our own experience.
5. Avoid expressing THEME as a cliché: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Honesty is the best policy.”
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Universal Themes in Literature
Definition of Theme
The theme of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central insight. In
order to figure out theme, a reader must ask what view of life a work supports or what
insight into life in the real world it reveals.
Definition of Universal Theme
Frequently, a work of fiction implies a few ideas about the nature of all men and
women or about the relationship of human beings to each other or to the universe. These
are called universal themes.
Examples of Universal Themes
As expressed by authors, themes involve positions on these familiar issues:
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A human being’s confrontation with nature
A human being’s lack of humanity
A rebellious human being’s confrontation with a hostile society
An individual’s struggle toward understanding, awareness, and/or spiritual
enlightenment
An individual’s conflict between passion and responsibility
The human glorification of the past/ rejection of the past
The tension between the ideal and the real
Conflict between human beings and machines
The impact of the past on the present
The inevitability of fate
The evil of unchecked ambition
The struggle for equality
The loss of innocence/disillusionment of adulthood
The conflict between parents and children
The making of an artist in a materialistic society
The clash between civilization and the wilderness
The clash between appearance and realities
The pain of love (or what passes for it)
The perils or rewards of carpe diem
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Close Reading of a Literary Passage
To do a close reading, you choose a specific passage and analyze it in fine detail, as if
with a magnifying glass. You then comment on points of style and on your reactions as a
reader. Close reading is important because it is the building block for larger analysis.
Your thoughts evolve not from someone else's truth about the reading, but from your own
observations. The more closely you can observe, the more original and exact your ideas
will be. To begin your close reading, ask yourself several specific questions about the
passage. The following questions are not a formula, but a starting point for your own
thoughts. When you arrive at some answers, you are ready to organize and write. You
should organize your close reading like any other kind of essay, paragraph by paragraph,
but you can arrange it any way you like.
I. First Impressions:
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What is the first thing you notice about the passage?
What is the second thing?
Do the two things you noticed complement each other? Or contradict each other?
What mood does the passage create in you? Why?
II. Vocabulary and Diction:
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Which words do you notice first? Why? What is noteworthy about this diction?
How do the important words relate to one another?
Do any words seem oddly used to you? Why?
Do any words have double meanings? Do they have extra connotations?
Look up any unfamiliar words. For a pre-20th century text, look in the Oxford
English Dictionary for possible outdated meanings. (The OED can only be
accessed by students with a subscription or from a library computer that has a
subscription. Otherwise, you should find a copy in the local library.)
III. Discerning Patterns:
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Does an image here remind you of an image elsewhere in the book? Where?
What's the connection?
How might this image fit into the pattern of the book as a whole?
Could this passage symbolize the entire work? Could this passage serve as a
microcosm--a little picture--of what's taking place in the whole work?
What is the sentence rhythm like? Short and choppy? Long and flowing? Does it
build on itself or stay at an even pace? What is the style like?
Look at the punctuation. Is there anything unusual about it?
Is there any repetition within the passage? What is the effect of that repetition?
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How many types of writing are in the passage? (For example, narration,
description, argument, dialogue, rhymed or alliterative poetry, etc.)
Can you identify paradoxes in the author's thought or subject?
What is left out or kept silent? What would you expect the author to talk about
that the author avoided?
IV. Point of View and Characterization:
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How does the passage make us react or think about any characters or events
within the narrative?
Are there colors, sounds, physical description that appeals to the senses? Does this
imagery form a pattern? Why might the author have chosen that color, sound or
physical description?
Who speaks in the passage? To whom does he or she speak? Does the narrator
have a limited or partial point of view? Or does the narrator appear to be
omniscient, and he knows things the characters couldn't possibly know? (For
example, omniscient narrators might mention future historical events, events
taking place "off stage," the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters, and so
on).
V. Symbolism:
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Are there metaphors? What kinds?
Is there one controlling metaphor? If not, how many different metaphors are there,
and in what order do they occur? How might that be significant?
How might objects represent something else?
Do any of the objects, colors, animals, or plants appearing in the passage have
traditional connotations or meaning? What about religious or biblical
significance?
If there are multiple symbols in the work, could we read the entire passage as
having allegorical meaning beyond the literal level?
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How to Do a Close Reading
The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text. Of course,
the writer's personal experience may occasionally come into the essay, and all essays
depend on the writer's own observations and knowledge. But most essays, especially
academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text—a painting, a movie, an
event—and usually with that of a written text. When you close read, you observe facts
and details about the text. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a
whole. Your aim may be to notice all striking features of the text, including rhetorical
features, structural elements, cultural references; or, your aim may be to notice only
selected features of the text—for instance, oppositions and correspondences, or particular
historical references. Either way, making these observations constitutes the first step in
the process of close reading.
The second step is interpreting your observations. What we're basically talking about here
is inductive reasoning: moving from the observation of particular facts and details to a
conclusion, or interpretation, based on those observations. And, as with inductive
reasoning, close reading requires careful gathering of data (your observations) and careful
thinking about what these data add up to.
How to Begin:
1. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text.
"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that
strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes
in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay
close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence—the first
step in moving from reader to writer.
Here's a sample passage by anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. It's from his
essay called "The Hidden Teacher."
. . . I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It happened far
away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch
looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellowand-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of
buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It was her universe, and her
senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel
she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration
throughout that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of
a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing. Down one spoke of the
web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to
investigate her prey.
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Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the
web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its
menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that
had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be
thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner
fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an
intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was
circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All
outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. As I
proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I
realized that in the world of spider I did not exist.
2. Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text—repetitions,
contradictions, similarities.
What do we notice in the previous passage? First, Eiseley tells us that the orb spider
taught him a lesson, thus inviting us to consider what that lesson might be. But we'll let
that larger question go for now and focus on particulars—we're working inductively. In
Eiseley's next sentence, we find that this encounter "happened far away on a rainy
morning in the West." This opening locates us in another time, another place, and has
echoes of the traditional fairy tale opening: "Once upon a time . . .". What does this
mean? Why would Eiseley want to remind us of tales and myth? We don't know yet, but
it's curious. We make a note of it.
Details of language convince us of our location "in the West"—gulch, arroyo, and
buffalo grass. Beyond that, though, Eiseley calls the spider's web "her universe" and "the
great wheel she inhabited," as in the great wheel of the heavens, the galaxies. By
metaphor, then, the web becomes the universe, "spider universe." And the spider, "she,"
whose "senses did not extend beyond" her universe, knows "the flutter of a trapped
moth's wing" and hurries "to investigate her prey." Eiseley says he could see her
"fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle." These details of language, and others,
characterize the "owner" of the web as thinking, feeling, striving—a creature much like
ourselves. But so what?
3. Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed—especially how and why.
To answer some of our own questions, we have to look back at the text and see what else
is going on. For instance, when Eiseley touches the web with his pencil point—an event
"for which no precedent existed"—the spider, naturally, can make no sense of the pencil
phenomenon: "Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas." Of course, spiders don't have
ideas, but we do. And if we start seeing this passage in human terms, seeing the spider's
situation in "her universe" as analogous to our situation in our universe (which we think
of as the universe), then we may decide that Eiseley is suggesting that our universe (the
universe) is also finite, that our ideas are circumscribed, and that beyond the limits of our
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universe there might be phenomena as fully beyond our ken as Eiseley himself—that
"vast impossible shadow"—was beyond the understanding of the spider.
But why vast and impossible, why a shadow? Does Eiseley mean God, extra-terrestrials?
Or something else, something we cannot name or even imagine? Is this the lesson? Now
we see that the sense of tale telling or myth at the start of the passage, plus this reference
to something vast and unseen, weighs against a simple E.T. sort of interpretation. And
though the spider can't explain, or even apprehend, Eiseley's pencil point, that pencil
point is explainable—rational after all. So maybe not God. We need more evidence, so
we go back to the text—the whole essay now, not just this one passage—and look for
additional clues. And as we proceed in this way, paying close attention to the evidence,
asking questions, formulating interpretations, we engage in a process that is central to
essay writing and to the whole academic enterprise: in other words, we reason toward our
own ideas.
Copyright 1998, Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
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How to Mark a Book
http://slowreads.com/ResourcesHowToMarkABook-Outline.htm
This outline addresses why you would ever want to mark in a book. For each reason, the
outline gives specific strategies to achieve your goals in reading the book. (Click here to
read the essay that this outline was created for.)
1. Interact with the book – talk back to it. You learn more from a conversation
than you do from a lecture. (This is the text-to-self connection.)
a. Typical marks
i. Question marks and questions – be a critical reader
ii. Exclamation marks – a great point, or I really agree!
iii. Smiley faces and other emoticons
iv. Color your favorite sections. Perhaps draw pictures in the margin
that remind you about the passage’s subject matter or events.
v. Pictures and graphic organizers. The pictures may express your
overall impression of a paragraph, page, or chapter. The graphic
organizer (Venn diagram, etc.) may give you a handy way to sort
the material in a way that makes sense to you.
b. Typical writing
i. Comments – agreements or disagreements
ii. Your personal experience
1. Write a short reference to something that happened to you
that the text reminds you of, or that the text helps you
understand better
2. Perhaps cross-reference to your diary or to your personal
journal (e.g., “Diary, Nov. 29, 2004”)
iii. Random associations
1. Begin to trust your gut when reading! Does the passage
remind you of a song? Another book? A story you read?
Like some of your dreams, your associations may carry
more psychic weight than you may realize at first. Write
the association down in the margin!
2. Cross-reference the book to other books making the same
point. Use a shortened name for the other book – one
you’ll remember, though. (e.g., “Harry Potter 3”) (This is a
text-to-text connection.)
2. Learn what the book teaches. (This is the text-to-world connection.)
a. Underline, circle or highlight key words and phrases.
b. Cross-reference a term with the book’s explanation of the term, or where
the book gives the term fuller treatment.
i. In other words, put a reference to another page in the book in the
margin where you’re reading. Use a page number.
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ii. Then, return the favor at the place in the book you just referred to.
You now have a link so you can find both pages if you find one of
them.
c. Put your own summaries in the margin
i. If you summarize a passage in your own words, you’ll learn the
material much better.
ii. Depending on how closely you wish to study the material, you may
wish to summarize entire sections, paragraphs, or even parts of
paragraphs.
iii. If you put your summaries in your books instead of separate
notebooks, the book you read and the summary you wrote will
reinforce each other. A positive synergy happens! You’ll also
keep your book and your notes in one place.
d. Leave a “trail” in the book that makes it easier to follow when you study
the material again.
i. Make a trail by writing subject matter headings in the margins.
You’ll find the material more easily the second time through.
ii. Bracket or highlight sections you think are important
e. In the margin, start a working outline of the section you’re reading. Use
only two or three levels to start with.
f. Create your own index in the back of the book! Click here to see an
example of a homemade index.
i. Don’t set out to make a comprehensive index. Just add items that
you want to find later.
ii. Decide on your own keywords – one or two per passage. What
would you look for if you returned to the book in a few days? In a
year?
iii. Use a blank page or pages in the back. Decide on how much space
to put before and after the keyword. If your keyword starts with
“g,” for instance, go about a quarter of the way through the page or
pages you’ve reserved for your index and write the word there.
iv. Write down the keyword and the page number on which the
keyword is found. If that isn’t specific enough, write “T,” “M,” or
“B” after the page number. Each of those letters tells you where to
look on the page in question; the letters stand for “top,” “middle,”
and “bottom,” respectively.
v. Does the book already have an index? Add to it with your own
keywords to make the index more useful to you.
g. Create a glossary at the beginning or end of a chapter or a book.
i. Every time you read a word you don’t know that seems important
for your purposes in reading the book, write it down in your
glossary.
ii. In your glossary next to the word in question, put the page number
where the word may be found.
iii. Put a very short definition by each word in the glossary.
3. Pick up the author’s style. (This is the reading-to-writing connection.)
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a. Why? Because you aren’t born with a writing style. You pick it up.
Perhaps there’s something that you like about this author’s style but you
don’t know what it is. Learn to analyze an author’s writing style in order
to pick up parts of her style that becomes natural to you.
b. How?
i. First, reflect a bit. What do you like about the writer’s style? If
nothing occurs to you, consider the tone of the piece (humorous,
passionate, etc.) Begin to wonder: how did the writer get the tone
across? (This method works for discovering how a writer gets
across tone, plot, conflict, and other things.)
ii. Look for patterns.
1. Read a paragraph or two or three you really like. Read it
over and over. What begins to stand out to you?
2. Circle or underline parts of speech with different colored
pens, pencils, or crayons. Perhaps red for verbs, blue for
nouns, and green for pronouns.
3. Circle or underline rhetorical devices with different colored
writing instruments, or surround them with different
geometric shapes, such as an oval, a rectangle, and a
triangle.
a. What rhetorical devices?
i. How she mixes up lengths of sentences
ii. Sound devices – alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia, repetition, internal rhymes,
etc.
iii. You name it!
iii. Pick a different subject than that covered in the passage, and
deliberately try to use the author’s patterns in your own writing.
iv. Put your writing aside for a few days, and then edit it. What
remains of what you originally adopted from the writer’s style? If
what remains is natural and well done, you may have made that
part of her style part of your own style.
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Steps for Close Reading or Explication de texte:
Patterns, polarities, problems, paradigm, puzzles, perception
An explication de texte (cf. Latin explicare, to unfold, to fold out, or to make clear the meaning of)
is a finely detailed, very specific examination of a short poem or short selected passage from a
longer work, in order to find the focus or design of the work, either in its entirety in the case of the
shorter poem or, in the case of the selected passage, the meaning of the microcosm,
containing or signaling the meaning of the macrocosm (the longer work of which it is a part).
To this end "close" reading calls attention to all dynamic tensions, polarities, or problems in the
imagery, style, literal content, diction, etc. By examining and thinking about opening up the way
the poem or work is perceived, writers establish a central pattern, a design that orders the
narrative and that will, in turn, order the organization of any essay about the work. Coleridge
knew about this method when he referred to the "germ" of a work of literature (see Biographia
Literaria). Very often, the language creates a visual dynamic as well as verbal coherence.
Close Reading or Explication de texte operates on the premise that literature, as artifice, will
be more fully understood and appreciated to the extent that the nature and interrelations of its
parts are perceived, and that that understanding will take the form of insight into the theme of the
work in question. This kind of work must be done before you can begin to appropriate any
theoretical or specific literary approach. Follow these instructions so you don't follow what Mrs.
Arable says about the magical web of Charlotte's in Charlotte's Web, "I don't understand it, and I
don't like what I don't understand."
Follow these steps before you begin writing. These are pre-writing steps,
procedures to follow, questions to consider before you commence actual
writing. Remember that the knowledge you gain from completing each of
the steps is cumulative. There may be some information that overlaps, but
do not take shortcuts. In selecting one passage from a short story, poem, or novel, limit
your selection to a short paragraph (4-5 sentences), but certainly no more than one paragraph.
When one passage, scene, or chapter of a larger work is the subject for explication, that
explication will show how its focused-upon subject serves as a macrocosm of the entire work—a
means of finding in a small sample patterns which fit the whole work.
If you follow these 12 steps to literary awareness, you will find a new
and exciting world. Do not be concerned if you do not have all the answers to the
questions in this section. Keep asking questions; keep your intellectual eyes open to new
possibilities.
1. Figurative Language. Examine the passage carefully for similes, images, metaphors,
and symbols. Identify any and all. List implications and suggested meanings as well as
denotations. What visual insights does each word give? Look for mutiple meanings and
overlapping of meaning. Look for repetitions, for oppositions. See also the etymology of
each word because you may find that the word you think you are familiar with is actually
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2.
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dependent upon a metaphoric concept. Consider how each word or group of words
suggests a pattern and/or points to an abstraction (e.g., time, space, love, soul, death).
Can you visualize the metaphoric world? Are there spatial dimensions to the language?
Diction. This section is closely connected with the section above. Diction, with its
emphasis on words, provides the crux of the explication. Mark all verbs in the passage,
mark or list all nouns, all adjectives, all adverbs etc. At this point it is advisable that you
type out the passage on a separate sheet to differentiate each grammatical type.
Examine each grouping. Look up as many words as you can in a good dictionary, even if
you think that you know the meaning of the word. The dictionary will illuminate new
connotations and new denotations of a word. Look at all the meanings of the key words.
Look up the etymology of the words. How have they changed? The words will begin to
take on multistable meanings. Be careful to always check back to the text, keeping
meaning contextually sound. Do not assume you know the depth or complexity of
meaning at first glance. Rely on the dictionary, particularly the Oxford English Dictionary.
Can you establish a word web of contrastive and parallel words? Do dictionary meanings
establish any new dynamic associations with other words? What is the etymology of
these words? Develop and question the metaphoric, spatial sense of the words. Can you
see what the metaphoric words are suggesting?
Literal content: this should be done as succinctly as possible. Briefly describe the
sketetal contents of the passage in one or two sentences. Answer the journalist's
questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why?) in order to establish character/s, plot,
and setting as it relates to this passage. What is the context for this passage?
Structure. Divide the passage into the more obvious sections (stages of argument,
discussion, or action). What is the interrelation of these units? How do they develop?
Again, what can you postulate regarding a controlling design for the work at this point? If
the work is a poem, identify the poetic structure and note the variations within that
structure. In order to fully understand "Scorn Not the Sonnet," you must be
knowledgeable about the sonnet as a form. What is free verse? Is this free verse or blank
verse? What is the significance of such a form? Does the form contribute to the
meaning? How does the theatrical structure of Childress's young adult novel, A Hero Ain't
Nothin' But a Sandwich, enhance the narrative?
Style. Look for any significant aspects of style—parallel constructions, antithesis, etc.
Look for patterns, polarities, and problems. Periodic sentences, clause structures?
Polysyndeton etc.? And reexamine all postulates, adding any new ones that occur to you.
Look for alliteration, internal rhymes and other such poetic devices which are often used
in prose as well as in poetry. A caesura? Enjambment? Anaphora? Polysyndeton? You
need to look closely here for meanings that are connected to these rhyme schemes.
Characterization. What insight does this passage now give into specific characters as
they develop through the work? Is there a persona in this passage? Any allusions to
other literary characters? To other literary works that might suggest a perspective. Look
for a pattern of metaphoric language to give added insight into their motives and feelings
which are not verbalized. You should now be firming up the few most important
encompassing postulates for the governing design of the work, for some overriding
themes or conflicts.
Tone. What is the tone of the passage? How does it elucidate the entire passage? Is the
tone one of irony? Sentimental? Serious? Humorous? Ironic?
Assessment. This step is not to suggest a reduction; rather, an "close reading" or
explication should enable you to problematize and expand your understanding of the text.
Ask what insight the passage gives into the work as a whole. How does it relate to
themes, ideas, larger actions in other parts of the work? Make sure that your hypothesis
regarding the theme(s) of the work is contextually sound. What does it suggest as the
polarity of the whole piece?
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9. Context: If your text is part of a larger whole, make brief reference to its position in the
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whole; if it is a short work, say, a poem, refer it to other works in its author's canon,
perhaps chronologically, but also thematically. Do this expeditiously.
Texture: This term refers to all those features of a work of literature which contribute to
its meaning or signification, as distinguished from that signification itself: its structure,
including features of grammar, syntax, diction, rhythm, and (for poems, and to some
extent) prosody; its imagery, that is, all language which appeals to the senses; and its
figuration, better known as similes, metaphors, and other verbal motifs.
Theme: A theme is not to be confused with thesis; the theme or more properly themes of
a work of literature is its broadest, most pervasive concern, and it is contained in a
complex combination of elements. In contrast to a thesis, which is usually expressed in a
single, arugumentative, declarative sentence and is characteristic of expository prose
rather than creative literature, a theme is not a statement; rather, it often is expressed in
a single word or a phrase, such as "love," "illusion versus reality," or "the tyranny of
circumstance." Generally, the theme of a work is never "right" or "wrong." There can be
virtually as many themes as there are readers, for essentially the concept of theme refers
to the emotion and insight which results from the experience of reading a work of
literature. As with many things, however, such an experience can be profound or trivial,
coherent or giddy; and discussions of a work and its theme can be correspondingly
worthwhile and convincing, or not. Everything depends on how well you present and
support your ideas. Everything you say about the theme must be supported by the brief
quotations from the text. Your argument and proof must be convincing. And that, finally,
is what explication is about: marshaling the elements of a work of literature in such a
way as to be convincing. Your approach must adhere to the elements of ideas,
concepts, and language inherent in the work itself. Remember to avoid phrases and
thinking which are expressed in the statement, "what I got out of it was. . . ."
Thesis: An explication should most definitely have a thesis statement. Do not try to write
your thesis until you have finished all 12 steps. The thesis should take the form, of
course, of an assertion about the meaning and function of the text which is your subject.
It must be something which you can argue for and prove in your essay.
Conclusion. Now, and only now are you ready to begin your actual writing. If you find that
what you had thought might be the theme of the work, and it doesn't "fit," you must then go back
to step one and start over. This is a trial and error exercise. You learn by doing. Finally, the
explication de texte should be a means to see the complexities and ambiguities in a given
work of literature, not for finding solutions and/or didactic truisms.
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What is Close Reading?
1. Close reading is the most important skill you need for any form of literary studies.
It means paying especially close attention to what is printed on the page. It is a much
more subtle and complex process than the term might suggest.
2. Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the
individual printed words; it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances
and connotations of language as it is used by skilled writers.
3. This can mean anything from a work's particular
vocabulary,
sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way
in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves
almost everything from the smallest
issues of literary understanding and judgement.
linguistic items to the largest
4. Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring
to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all
four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more
complex.
Linguistic - You pay
especially close attention to the surface
linguistic elements of the text - that is, to
aspects of
vocabulary,
grammar, and syntax. You might also note
such things as figures of speech or any other
features which contribute to the writer's
individual style.
Semantic - You take account at a deeper
level of what the words mean - that is, what
information they yield up, what meanings
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they denote and connote.
Structural - You note the possible
relationships between words within the text and this might include items from either the
linguistic or semantic types of
reading.
Cultural - You note the relationship of any
elements of the text to things outside it.
These might be other pieces of writing by the
same author, or other writings of the same
type by different writers. They might be
items of social or cultural history, or even
other academic disciplines which might seem
relevant, such as philosophy or psychology.
5. Close reading is not a skill which can be developed to a sophisticated extent
overnight. It requires a lot of practice in the various
linguistic and
literary disciplines involved - and it requires that you do a lot of reading. The good
news is that most people already possess the skills required. They have acquired
them automatically through being able to read - even though they havn't been
conscious of doing so. This is rather like many other things which we learn
unconsciously. After all, you don't need to know the names of your leg muscles in
order to walk down the street.
6. The four types of reading also represent increasingly complex and sophisticated
phases in our scrutiny of the text.
Linguistic reading is largely
descriptive. We are noting what is in the text
and naming its parts for possible use in the
next stage of reading.
Semantic reading is cognitive. That is, we
need to understand what the words are
telling us - both at a surface and maybe at an
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implicit level.
Structural reading is analytic. We must
assess, examine, sift, and judge a large
number of items from within the text in their
relationships to each other.
Cultural reading is interpretive. We offer
judgements on the work in its general
relationship to a large body of cultural
material outside it.
7. The first and second of these stages are the sorts of activity designated as
'Beginners' level; the third takes us to 'Intermediate'; and the fourth to 'Advanced'
and beyond.
8. One of the first things you need to acquire for serious literary study is a knowledge
of the vocabulary, the technical language, indeed the jargon in which literature is
discussed. You need to acquaint yourself with the technical
of the discipline and then go on to study how its parts work.
vocabulary
9. What follows is a short list of features you might keep in mind whilst reading. They
should give you ideas of what to look for. It is just a prompt to help you get under
way.
Close reading - Checklist
Grammar
The relationships of the words in sentences
Vocabulary
The author's choice of individual words
Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices used to give
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decoration and imaginative expression to
literature, such as simile or metaphor
Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to
give added depth to the work, such as
imagery or symbolism
Tone
The author's attitude to the subject as
revealed in the manner of the writing
Style
The author's particular choice and
combination of all these features of writing
which creates a recognisable and distinctive
manner of writing.
10. Now here's an example of close reading in action. The short passage which
follows comes from the famous opening to Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
11. If you would like to treat this as an interactive exercise, read the passage through
a number of times. Make notes, and write down all you can say about what goes to
make up its literary 'quality'. That is, you should scrutinise the passage as closely as
possible, name its parts, and say what devices the author is using. Don't be afraid to
list even the most obvious points.
12. If you are not really sure what all this means however, allow yourself a brief
glance ahead at the first couple of discussion notes which follow, and then come back
to carry on making notes of your own.
13. Don't worry if you are not sure what name to give to any feature you notice. You
will see the technical
vocabulary being used in the discussion notes
which follow, and this should help you pick up this skill as we go along.
Bleak House
London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and
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the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn
Hall. Implacable November weather. As
much mud in the streets, as if the waters had
but newly retired from the face of the earth,
and it would not be wonderful to meet a
Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling
like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
Smoke lowering down from chimney pots,
making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of
soot in it as big as full grown snowflakes gone into mourning, one might imagine, for
the death of the sun.
14. This is the sort of writing which many people, asked for their first impressions,
would say was very 'descriptive'. But if you looked at it closely enough you will have
seen that it is imaginative rather than descriptive. It doesn't 'describe what is there' but it invents images and impressions. There is as much "it was as if ..." material in
the extract as there is anything descriptive. What follows is a close reading of the
extract, with comments listed in the order that they appear in the extract.
London
This is an abrupt and astonishingly short 'sentence' with which to start a six hundred
page novel. In fact technically, it is grammatically incomplete, because it does not
have a verb or an object. It somehow implies the meaning 'The scene is London.'
Sentence construction
In fact each of the first four sentences here are 'incomplete' in this sense. Dickens is
taking liberties with conventional grammar - and obviously he is writing for a literate
and fairly sophisticated readership.
Sentence length
These four sentences vary from one word to forty-three words in length. This helps to
create entertaining variation and robust flexibility in his prose style.
Michaelmas Term
There are several names (proper nouns) in these sentences, all signalled by capital
letters (London, Michaelmas Term, Lord Chancellor, Lincoln's Inn Hall, November,
Holborn Hill). This helps to create the very credible and realistic world Dickens
presents in his fiction. We believe that this is the same London which we could visit
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today. The names also emphasise the very specific and concrete nature of the world
he creates.
Michaelmas Term
This occurs in autumn. It comes from the language of the old universities (Oxford
and Cambridge) which is shared by the legal profession and the Church.
Lord Chancellor sitting
Here 'sitting' is a present participle. The novel is being told in the present tense at
this point, which is rather unusual. The effect is to give vividness and immediacy to
the story. We are being persuaded that these events are taking place now.
Implacable
This is an unusual and very strong term to describe the weather. It means 'that which
cannot be appeased'. What it reflects is Dickens's genius for making almost
everything in his writing original, striking, and dramatic.
as if
This is the start of his extended simile comparing the muddy streets with the
primeval world.
the waters
There is a slight Biblical echo here, which also fits neatly with the idea of an ancient
world he is summoning up.
but newly and wonderful
These are slightly archaic expressions. We might normally expect 'recently' and
'astonishing' but Dickens is selecting his vocabulary to suit the subject - the
prehistoric world. 'Wonderful' is being used in its original sense of - 'something we
wonder at'.
forty feet long or so
After the very specific 'forty feet long', the addition of 'or so' introduces a slightly
conversational tone and a casual, almost comic effect.
waddling
This reinforces the humorous manner in which Dickens is presenting this
Megalosaurus - and note the breadth of his vocabulary in naming the beast with such
scientific precision.
like an elephantine lizard
This is another simile, announced by the word 'like'. Here is Dickens's skill with
language yet again. He converts a 'large' noun ('elephant') into an adjective
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('elephantine') and couples it to something which is usually small ('lizard') to
describe, very appropriately it seems, his Megalosaurus.
up Holborn Hill
There is a distinct contrast, almost a shock here, in this abrupt transition from an
imagined prehistoric world and its monsters to the 'real' world of Holborn in
London.
lowering
This is another present participle, and an unusual verb. It means 'to sink, descend, or
slope downwards'. It comes from a rather 'poetic' verbal register, and it has a
softness (there are no sharp or harsh sounds in it) which makes it very suitable for
describing the movement of smoke.
soft black drizzle
He is comparing the dense smoke (from coal fires) with another form of particularly
depressing atmosphere - a drizzle of rain. Notice how he goes on to elaborate the
comparison.
as big as full grown snow flakes
The comparison becomes another simile: 'as big as'. And then 'full grown' almost
suggests that the snowflakes are human. This is a device much favoured by Dickens:
it is called 'anthropomorphism' - attributing human qualities or characteristics to
things which are themselves inanimate. Then 'snowflakes' is a well-observed
comparison for an enlarged flake of soot, because they are of similar size and texture.
Notice next how Dickens immediately goes on to play with the notion that whilst soot
is black, snowflakes are white.
gone into mourning
This reinforces the anthropomorphism. The inanimate world is being brought to life.
And of course 'mourning' reinforces the atmospheric gloom he is trying to evoke. It
also introduces blackness (the colour of mourning) to explain how these snowflakes
(actually flakes of soot) might have changed from white to black.
the death of the sun
This is why the flakes have changed colour. And if the sun has died the light and life
it brings to earth have also been extinguished - which reinforces the atmosphere of
pre-historic darkness he is creating.
15. We will stop at this point. It would in fact be possible to say even more about the
extract if we were to relate it to the novel as a whole - but almost everything listed
was accessible even if you were reading the passage for the first time.
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16. Literary studies are not conducted in such detail all the time, but it is very
important that you try to develop the skill of reading as closely as possible. It really is
the foundation on which everything else is based.
17. The next point to make about such close reading is that it becomes easier if you
get used to the idea of reading and re-reading. The Russian novelist Vladimir
Nabokov (famous for Lolita) once observed that "Curiously enough, one cannot read
a book: one can only re-read it".
18. What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we
read a book we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the
subtle connexions there may be between its parts - because we don't yet have the
complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a
third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of
meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.
19. This is why the activity is called 'close reading'. You should try to get used to the
notion of reading and re-reading very carefully, scrupulously, and in great detail.
20. Finally, let's try to dispel a common misconception. Many people ask, when they
first come into contact with close reading: "Doesn't analysing a piece of work in such
detail spoil your enjoyment of it?" The answer to this question is "No - on the
contrary - it should enhance it." The simple fact is that we get more out of a piece of
writing if we can appreciate all the subtleties and the intricacies which exist within it.
Nabokov also suggested that "In reading, one should notice and fondle the details".
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Close Reading a Text
Use these "tracking" methods to yield a richer understanding of the text and lay a solid
ground work for your thesis.
1. Use a highlighter, but only after you've read for comprehension. The point of
highlighting at this stage is to note key passages, phrases, turning points in the
story.
Pitfalls:
Highlighting too much
Highlighting without notes in the margins
2. Write marginal notes in the text.
These should be questions, comments, dialogue with the text itself.
A paragraph from Doris Lessing's short story "A Woman on a Roof" serves as an
example:
The second paragraph could have a note from the reader like this:
Marginal
Notes
Text
Why is the man annoyed
by the sunbather? Is
Lessing commenting on
sexist attitudes?
Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards
away. She lay face down on a brown blanket. They could
see the top part of her: black hair, aflushed solid back,
arms spread out.
"She's stark naked," said Stanley, sounding annoyed.
3. Keep a notebook for freewrite summaries and response entries.
Write quickly after your reading: ask questions, attempt answers and make comments
about whatever catches your attention. A good question to begin with when writing
response entries is "What point does the author seem to be making?"
4. Step back.
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After close reading and annotating, can you now make a statement about the story's
meaning? Is the author commenting on a certain type of person or situation? What is that
comment?
Glossary of Literary Terms
Alliteration : A sound effect in which consonant sounds are repeated, particularly at the
beginnings of words or of stressed syllables.
Allusion: A reference to something (such as a character or event in literature, history, or
mythology) outside the text itself.
Ambiguity: Quality of being intentionally unclear. Events that are ambiguous can be
interpreted in more than one way. This device is particularly beneficial in poetry,
as it tends to enrich the work with the depth of multiple meanings.
Anachronism: In a story, an element that is out of its time frame, sometimes used to
create an amusing or jarring effect.
Analysis: The process of examining components of a literary work.
Anapest: The poetic foot (measure)that follows the pattern unaccented, unaccented,
accented.
Anecdote: A short and often personal story used to emphasize a point, to develop a
character or a theme, or to inject humor
Antagonist: The main opponent of the protagonist in a story, play, narrative, or dramatic
work.
Antecedent: The word or phrase to which a pronoun refers.
Anticlimax: An often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation.
Antihero: A protagonist who carries the action of the literary piece but does not embody
the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility.
Antithesis: A concept that is directly opposed to a previously presented idea.
Aphorism: A terse statement of truth, principle, or opinion.
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Apostrophe: A rhetorical (not expecting an answer) figure of direct address to a person,
object or abstract entity. [Such as John Donne’s address to death in “Death Be
Not Proud”]
Archetype: A character, situation, or symbol that is familiar to people from all cultures
because it occurs in literature, myth, religion, or folklore.
Assonance: A sound effect in which identical or similar vowel sounds are repeated in
two or more words in close proximity to each other.
Ballad: A folk song or poem passed down orally that tells a story which may be derived
from an actual incident or from legend or folklore. Usually composed in fourlined stanzas with the rhyme scheme abcb, ballads often contain a refrain.
Blank Verse: Unrhymed poetry of iambic pentameter. (Favored technique of
Shakespeare)
Citation: A reference made in an essay, to another text. The citation may be used for
diverse purposes: to illustrate a point or idea, to add support or authority to the
writer’s argument or reasoning, to bolster reader trust in the persona, or to add
depth to the essay by expanding its range of literary reference.
Climax: The moment in the plot of a story or play at which tensions are highest or
suspense reaches its height.
Conflict: A struggle among opposing forces or characters in fiction, poetry, or drama.
Connotation: An associative or suggestive meaning of a word in addition to its literal
dictionary meaning (or denotation).
Consonance: A sound effect in which identical or similar consonant sounds, occurring in
nearby words, are repeated with different intervening vowels (ex: crush/crash)
Couplet: Two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables, with matching
cadence.
Dactyl: Foot of poetry with three syllables, one stressed and two short or unstressed.
Denotation: The dictionary definition of a word, without associative or implied
meanings.
Denouement: The moment of final resolution of the conflict in a plot.
Deus Ex Machina: Literally, when the gods intervene at a story’s end to resolve a
seemingly impossible conflict. Refers to an unlikely or improbable coincidence; a
cop-out ending.
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Dialogue: The spoken conversation that occurs in a text.
Diction: Word choice. Diction can be described as formal or informal, abstract or
concrete, general or specific, and literal or figurative.
Didactic: A didactic story, speech, essay or play is one in which the author’s primary
purpose is to instruct, moralize, or teach.
English or Shakespearean Sonnet: A fourteen-line love poem in iambic pentameter
with a rhyme scheme abab, cdcd,efef,gg.
Epigraph: A brief quotation found at the beginning of a literary work, reflective of
theme.
Epiphany: A sudden flash of insight; a dramatic realization.
Epistolary Novel: A novel written in letter format by one or more characters.
Essay: A unifies and relatively short work of nonfiction prose.
An Argumentative essay advances an explicit argument and supports it with
evidence. An Expository essay informs an audience or explains a particular
subject.
Ethos: The moral element in dramatic literature that determines a character’ action rather
than his or her thoughts or emotion.
Euphemism: Substitution of an inoffensive word or phrase for another that would be
harsh, offensive, or embarrassing.
Exposition: The part of the plot of a short story or play that provides the background
information on characters, setting, and plot.
Farce: A kind of comedy that depends on exaggerated or improbable situations, physical
disasters, and/or sexual innuendo to amuse the audience
Figurative Language: The term used to encompass all non-literal uses of language.
Figure (or Trope): A word or phrase used in a way that significantly changes its
standard or literal meaning. Common kinds of figures are metaphor, simile,
irony, and paradox.
Flashback: Interruption in the chronological presentation of a narrative or drama that
presents an earlier episode.
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Flat Character: A simple, one dimensional character who remains the same, and about
whom little or nothing is revealed throughout the course of the work.
Foil: A character whose contrasting personal characteristics draws attention to, enhance,
or contrast with those of the main character. A character who, by displaying
opposite traits, emphasizes certain aspects of another character.
Free Verse: Poetry that does not have regular rhythm or rhyme.
Genre: The category into which a piece of writing can be classified—poetry, prose,
drama. Each genre has its own conventions and standards.
Hubris: Insolence, arrogance, or pride.
Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration for literary effect that is not meant to be interpreted
literally.
Iamb: a metrical foot consisting of a lightly stressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable.
Iambic Pentameter: A five-foot line made up of an unaccented followed by an accented
syllable.
Imagery: Anything that affects or appeals to the reader’s senses: sight, sound, touch,
taste, or smell.
In Medias Res: In literature, a work that begins in the middle of the story.
Interior Monologue: A literary technique used in poetry and prose that reveals a
character’s unspoken thoughts and feelings.
Internal Rhyme: A rhyme that is within the line, rather than at the end.
Inversion: A switch in the normal word order, often for emphasis or for rhyme scheme.
Irony: A type of incongruity. Dramatic irony involves an incongruity between what a
characters in a story or believes and what we know. Verbal irony involves an
incongruity between what is literally said and what is actually meant.
Italian Sonnet: Fourteen-line poem divided into two parts: the first eight lines
(abbaabba) and the second is six (cdcdcd or cdecde).
Litotes: Affirmation of an idea by using a negative understatement. (The opposite of
hyperbole.)
Logos: The topics of rational (logical) argument or the arguments themselves.
Lyric Poem: A poem, usually rather short, in which a speaker expresses a state of mind
or feeling of a single speaker.
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Metamorphosis: A radical change in a character, either physical or emotional.
Metaphor: A figure of speech which compares two dissimilar things, asserting that one
thing is another thing, not just that one is like another thing.
Meter: The rhythmic pattern of a poem. Just as all words are pronounced with accented
(or stressed) syllables, lines of poetry are assigned similar rhythms. English
poetry uses five basic metric feet:
 Iamb—unstressed, stressed: before
 Trochee—stressed, unstressed: weather
 Anapest—unstressed, unstressed, stressed: contradict
 Dactyl—stressed, unstressed, unstressed: satisfy
 Spondee—equally stressed: One word spondees are very rare in the
English language; a spondaic foot is almost always two words.
Metonymy: A figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or
phrase closely associated with it. (Example: saying “the White House” instead of
“the president”)
Monologue: A long speech by a single character.
Myth: A story, usually with supernatural significance, that explains the origins of gods,
heroes, or natural phenomena; they also contain deeper truths, particularly about
the nature of human kind.
Narrative Poem: A poem that tells a story.
Ode: A lyric poem, composed in a lofty style, that is serious in subject and elaborate in
stanza structure.
Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word, as cuckoo or boom, by imitation of a sound
made by or associated with its referent.
Oxymoron: A figure of speech that combines two contradictory words placed side by
side: deafening silence.
Parable: A short story illustrating a moral or religious lesson.
Paradox: An apparently contradictory statement that proves, upon examination, to be
true.
Parallelism: The repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or series
of sentences. This device tends to emphasize what is said to underscore the
meaning.
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Parody: A comical imitation of a serious piece with the intent of ridiculing the author or
his work.
Pastoral: A poem, play, or story that celebrates and idealizes the simple life of
shepherds. Also refers to an artistic work that portrays rural life in an idyllic
manner.
Pathos: The quality of a literary work or passage which appeals to the reader’s emotions.
Personification: The attribution of human characteristics to an animal or to an inanimate
object.
Point of View: Perspective of the speaker or narrator in a literary work.
 First person—the story is told by the character himself/herself.
 Third person limited—the story is told from the character’s point of view, but
through a narrator.
 Third person omniscient—the story is told by an all-seeing narrator.
Protagonist: The main or principle character in a work; often considered the hero or
heroine.
Pun: Humorous play on words that have several meanings or words that sound the same
but have different meanings.
Quatrain: Four-lined stanza
Refrain: Repetition of a line, stanza, or phrase.
Repetition: A word or phrase used more than once to emphasize an idea.
Rhetoric- The art or science of all specialized literary uses of language in prose or verse,
including figurative language; the study of the effective use of language.
Rhetorical Question: A question with an obvious answer, so no response is expected.
Satire: The use of humor to ridicule and expose the shortcomings and failings of society,
individuals, and institutions, often in the hope that change and reform are
possible.
Sestet: A six-lined stanza of poetry; also the last six lines of an Italian sonnet.
Simile: A comparison of things using the word like, as, or so
Soliloquy: A character’s speech to the audience, in which emotions and ideas are
revealed. A monologue is a soliloquy only if the character is alone on stage.
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Stanza: A grouping of poetic lines; a deliberate arrangement of lines in poetry.
Stock Character: A stereotypical character.
Stream of Consciousness: A form of writing that replicates the way the human mind
works. Ideas are presented in random order; thoughts are often unfinished.
Style: The way a writer uses language; takes into account word choice, diction, figures of
speech, and so on. Refers to the writer’s voice.
Symbol: A concrete object, scene, or action which has deeper significance because it is
associated with something else, often an important idea or theme in the work.
Synecdoche: A figure of speech where one part represents the entire object or vice versa.
Syntax: The way in which words, phrases, and sentences are ordered and connected.
Theme: The central idea of a literary work.
Tone: Refers to the author’s attitude toward the subject, and often sets the mood of the
piece.
Tragic Flaw: Traditionally, a defect in a hero or heroine that leads to his or her downfall.
Transition/segue: The means to get from one portion of a poem or story to another; for
instance, to another setting, to another character’s viewpoint, to a later or earlier
time period. It is a way of smoothly connecting different parts of a work.
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