Close Reading handout 100-200 level PDF

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Close Reading: A Checklist “Close reading” describes a way of reading that attends not just to what a text “says,” but also to how it says it. When reading closely, you should aim to assess not only the content or theme of a work of literature, but also its form, style, and grammar. This checklist suggests some of the questions you can ask of a piece of literature – either as a way to begin exploring an unfamiliar work, or as a first step towards generating the formal evidence you will need when writing your essays. Not all of the questions will be relevant to every text you read. However, if you begin by reviewing all of the questions in relation to any new work, you should be able to return to those questions that provoke the most interesting answers to begin work on a thesis. For a good basic introduction to common genres, tropes, and literary devices, see M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed (available in the University of Saskatchewan library system).

Form: What sorts of categories does this work fall into? Sound patterns (e.g. rhyme, alliteration, consonance, assonance, etc.)? Repetition (of particular words or sentence structure)? Style: Is the diction (word choice) commonplace, lofty, scientific, concrete, abstract? Are the sentences notably long or short, etc.? o Literary devices: Do you notice any striking use of rhetorical questions, hyperbole, understatement, metaphors, similes, parallelism, repetition, etc.? o o o o

Perspective: o What is the point of view? (First person, second person, third person? Omniscient? Limited? Is the narrator authoritative, unreliable?) o What is the implied situation of writing? (Does the text seem to come to us inspired by God, overheard on a bus, found in a drawer, as a direct account of the author’s experience, etc.?) o Does the work appear to express the author’s actual views? How can you tell? (And if not, what factors impede such attribution? For instance: the dramatic mode, unreliable narrator, implied speaker, irony, etc.) Plot: o Is the action predominantly external or internal (e.g. psychological)? o Is the plot unified, episodic, out of temporal order? o How else might you characterize the central action (e.g. a story of pilgrimage, escape, salvation, reversal, success, defeat, mystery, swindle, education, fall,metamorphosis, revelation, etc.?) o Is there anything noteworthy about the very beginning or ending?

Adapted from Morgan Vanek, “Close Reading: A Checklist,” and Mark Jones, “Questions for Literary Analysis and Interpretation” (for ENG250, Queen’s University).

Context: o What notable relation does this work have to other works (e.g. influenced by, parody of, response to, resembles, is a member of a set or series)? o Does it seem to have a bias, or to be designed to persuade its reader in any way? o Are there reasons why the author might not have been able to or have wanted to say explicitly everything s/he wished to say? Is anything notably understood, coded, or otherwise distorted? o Significance: When you have finished the checklist above, look over your responses and ask yourself what features stand out most in this work. Then ask yourself: 1.

What is interesting or significant about the features I have observed?

2.

Do these features suggest any larger message or idea within their immediate context?

3.

How does the treatment of this message or idea relate to the way it is treated in the work as a whole?

Adapted from Morgan Vanek, “Close Reading: A Checklist,” and Mark Jones, “Questions for Literary Analysis and Interpretation” (for ENG250, Queen’s University)....