July 31, 2010 Archives
A close reading is a careful, thorough, sustained examination of the words that make up a text.
A close reading uses short quotations (a few words or only one word) inside sentences that make an argument about the work itself. Your focus in a close reading is the words the author has written, rather than a narrative that describes your reactions, or a list of important incidents in the author's life, or a discussion of how things today compare to the society depicted in the story.
In a close reading, a literary work is not a magic window to look through (as if you could learn facts about real Puritans or real women or real witches by reading Hawthorne's fiction).
In a close reading, a literary work is not a magic mirror to reflect yourself (and your personal experiences, what you would do if you were the protagonist, how you think the work should have been written, what you think happened next after the work ended).
In a close reading, we look closely at the language the author chose, in order to analyze what the author has accomplished. (Forster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor is an excellent source of ideas for close readings.)
A close reading uses short quotations (a few words or only one word) inside sentences that make an argument about the work itself. Your focus in a close reading is the words the author has written, rather than a narrative that describes your reactions, or a list of important incidents in the author's life, or a discussion of how things today compare to the society depicted in the story.
In a close reading, a literary work is not a magic window to look through (as if you could learn facts about real Puritans or real women or real witches by reading Hawthorne's fiction).
In a close reading, a literary work is not a magic mirror to reflect yourself (and your personal experiences, what you would do if you were the protagonist, how you think the work should have been written, what you think happened next after the work ended).
In a close reading, we look closely at the language the author chose, in order to analyze what the author has accomplished. (Forster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor is an excellent source of ideas for close readings.)
Continue reading Close Reading.
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