What is Close Reading A way of approaching a text to highlight its internal dynamic Follows the Hermeneutic Circle of establishing an interplay between part and whole The close reading endeavors to explain the internal linguistic and rhetorical aspects of a short passage ID: 434570
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Close Readings and AnalysisSlide2
What is Close Reading?
A way of approaching a text to highlight its internal dynamic.
Follows the Hermeneutic Circle of establishing an interplay between part and whole.
The close reading endeavors to explain the internal linguistic and rhetorical aspects of a short passage.
After explaining this internal dynamic, the passage is then considered within the context of the work as a whole.
The part helps elucidate the whole and our knowledge of the whole helps elucidate the part (hermeneutic circle).Slide3
How to do a Close Reading?
Read the passage three times. One reading is simply not enough.
Underline or circle any words that stand out.
Write notes in the margins.
Give extreme attention to the language of the passage.
What words stand out? What adjectives are used and why? Why does the author choose these words?
Is tension created in the passage?
How does the passage better help us understand the themes of the work as a whole? Slide4
How to Write an Argumentative Paragraph Based on a Close Reading
Demonstrate excellent analytical skills
Don’t oversimplify! In math and science, clarity and simplicity are the ultimate aims of inquiry. Solutions are sought. In literary analysis, your job is not necessarily to find the solution, but often to find the problem!
Strive to demonstrate the complexity of the passage. Uncover inner tension.
How does this passage relate to the themes of the work as a whole? Slide5
Sample Close Reading of Gawain Lines 1792-1816
The tension between Gawain’s courtly code of conduct and his temptation to sin is on display in the passage. The woman, whom we later discover to be the wife of Bertilak, demonstrates a keen desire for amorous attention from Gawain: “Kiss me as I wish and I shall walk away/in mourning like a lady who loved too much” (
Sir Gawain
223). Gawain, lacking proper means to requite the fair lady’s love, is left searching for answers:
I wish I had here my most precious possession as a present for your love, for over and over you deserve and are owed the highest prize I could hope to offer. But I would not wish on you a worthless token, and it strikes me as unseemly that you should receive nothing greater than a glove as a keepsake from Gawain. (
Sir Gawain
223)
This
passage provides powerful insight into the kind of internal tension that hampers Gawain. On the one hand, our knight is bound to a courtly ethos that demands of him the utmost respect of the lady. On the other hand, Gawain must keep his temptation in check and refrain from improper conduct.
This contrast is illuminated by the words “wish” (which occurs twice) and “unseemly.” Gawain’s wishes are fundamentally at odds with the unseemly consequences of these wishes, and as a result, he inhabits a kind of moral purgatory for much of the poem. Only his final confrontation with the Green Knight allows him to emerge from this purgatory and resolve this tension, paving the way to full knighthood.