1/7/2024 0 Comments Definition of textual evidence“Annotate to appreciate annotate to understand… It builds reading confidence it helps us understand how literature is made-because it puts us there among the phrases.” ![]() Think of close reading as something that you do with a pencil and book in your hand. In essence, close reading means taking a step back from the larger narrative and examining the constituent parts of a text. In the hands of subsequent critics, like William Empson, the technique became a way to offer virtuoso accounts of particular poems and literary works, with an emphasis on ambiguity and the multiplication of possible meanings. ![]() With that in mind, he gave students poems without any information about who wrote them or why they were written. He felt it was essential that students put aside their preconceptions and learn to appreciate the liveliness and multiplicity of language. So instead of doing a close reading of twenty lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream *in* your essay, you would do it independently, and then cite and explain three key phrases, relating them clearly to your developing argument.Ĭlose reading is also sometimes known as Practical Criticism, rooted in the techniques espoused by the Cambridge critic I. It is possible to close read an extended passage, but for essays it is often a good technique to do the close reading first and then to use very short extracts or even single words to demonstrate your insights. It’s not reading between the lines, but reading further and further into the lines and seeing the multiple meanings a turn of phrase, a description, or a word can unlock. It is, in her words, ‘a form of defamiliarisation we use in order to break through our habitual and casual reading practices’ (Teaching Literature, 98).Īs readers, we are accustomed to reading for plot, or allowing the joy of the reading experience to take over and carry us along, without stopping to ask how and why a particular passage, sentence, or word achieves its effects.Ĭlose reading, then, is about pausing, and looking at the precise techniques, dynamics, and content of the text. ![]() slow reading, a deliberate attempt to detach ourselves from the magical power of story-telling and pay attention to language, imagery, allusion, intertextuality, syntax and form. Elaine Showalter describes close reading as:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |