Embedding quotations by Dr Andrew Osborn Introduction Most of the essays that you write for courses in the Literary Tradition sequence will be arguments based on interpretive analysis Introduction ID: 1018310
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Embedding quotations The Marriage of Cla..." is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
1. Embedding quotationsThe Marriage of Claim and Evidence
2. Embedding quotationsby Dr. Andrew Osborn
3. IntroductionMost of the essays that you write for courses in the Literary Tradition sequence will be arguments based on interpretive analysis.
4. IntroductionMost of the essays that you write for courses in the Literary Tradition sequence will be arguments based on interpretive analysis.Arguments are built from claims, which must be articulated and defended.
5. IntroductionMost of the essays that you write for courses in the Literary Tradition sequence will be arguments based on interpretive analysis.Arguments are built from claims, which must be articulated and defended.In arguments about literature, the claims most often will be interpretive; that is, they will regard how certain language should be understood.
6. IntroductionYou may defend claims about your understanding of a text—an epic, for example, or a lyric poem, tragic drama, or prose narrative—by showing that its language signifies what you say it does.
7. IntroductionYou may defend claims about your understanding of a text—an epic, for example, or a lyric poem, tragic drama, or prose narrative—by showing that its language signifies what you say it does. The engines of a literary argument are claim-making interpretive sentences that supply their own evidence, often in the form of embedded quotations.
8. IntroductionThis presentation will review how to think about using quotations in arguments about the interpretation of literature.
9. IntroductionThis presentation will review how to think about using quotations in arguments about the interpretation of literature.Although the directive “key points” should be helpful, the positive and negative “interpretive sentences”—which exemplify what you should strive to emulate or avoid—may be more helpful.
10. IntroductionAn audio recording of Dr. Osborn presenting an earlier version of this PowerPoint is available here. (You may listen to it in the background as you continue watching the presentation.)
11. Key PointsQuotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.
12. Key PointsQuotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.Quotations generally should be kept short.
13. Key PointsQuotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.Quotations generally should be kept short.Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.
14. Key PointsQuotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.Quotations generally should be kept short.Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.Quotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.
15. Interpretive SentencesWhat follows is a series of claim-making, interpretive sentences—some exemplary, some negative—and explanations of what makes them good or bad.
16. Interpretive SentencesWhat follows is a series of claim-making, interpretive sentences—some exemplary, some negative—with explanations of what makes them good or bad. Although you’ll encounter quotations from Shakespeare and Dante, most are from Homer’s Odyssey.
17. Interpretive Sentences – Example 1In The Odyssey’s opening lines, Homer likens the telling of a tale to the sailing of a ship when he invokes the muse to “Launch out on [the] story” (1.11).* Given that Odysseus is “the man of twists and turns” and that he is “driven time and again off course,” it should come as no surprise that the story shifts back and forth in time and is full of digressions (1.1, 2).*Fagles translation
18. Interpretive Sentences – Example 2When the hero Tithonos became Dawn’s consort, he was granted immortality but not eternal youth and so dwindled over the years to little more than a pulsing ember. Book Five of The Odyssey begins with the epic’s only mention of him—“Now Dawn rose from her bed, where she lay by haughty Tithonos”—as apt context for Odysseus’s escape from the nymph Kalypso, who “had hopes [to] make him immortal and all his days to be endless” but might also have neglected to secure her lover’s vim (Od. 5.1, 136). Book Five’s conclusion hints again at Odysseus’s avoidance of Tithonos’s tragic fate when, bedding down near the shore of Scheria, Odysseus “burie[s] himself in the leaves” as one “buries a burning log in a black ash heap . . . and saves the seed of fire” (5.488-91).
19. Interpretive Sentences – Example 3When the hero Tithonos became Dawn’s consort, he was granted immortality but not eternal youth and so dwindled over the years to little more than a pulsing ember. Book Five of The Odyssey begins with the epic’s only mention of him—“Now Dawn rose from her bed, where she lay by haughty Tithonos”—as apt context for Odysseus’s escape from the nymph Kalypso, who “had hopes [to] make him immortal and all his days to be endless” but might also have neglected to secure her lover’s vim (Od. 5.1, 136). Book Five’s conclusion hints again at Odysseus’s avoidance of Tithonos’s tragic fate when, bedding down near the shore of Scheria, Odysseus “burie[s] himself in the leaves” as one “buries a burning log in a black ash heap . . . and saves the seed of fire” (5.488-91).
20. Point 1Quotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.
21. Point 1Quotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.To think of quotations as evidence is to recognize that they should be used to secure otherwise vulnerable (controversial) claims
22. Point 1Quotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.To think of quotations as evidence is to recognize that they should be used to secure otherwise vulnerable (controversial) claimsSo: minimize the use of quotation to provide mere information about which there can be little or no disagreement
23. Negative Example AOdysseus shows both emotional and physical restraint when, after escaping an inglorious death at sea and stumbling upon the “young girls with well-ordered hair” on the shore of Scheria, he encounters “the only daughter of Alkinoös” (6.135, 139).
24. Negative Example AOdysseus shows both emotional and physical restraint when, after escaping an inglorious death at sea and stumbling upon the “young girls with well-ordered hair” on the shore of Scheria, he encounters “the only daughter of Alkinoös” (6.135, 139).[The underlined assertion is a claim that deserves support, but the quotations do not offer relevant evidence.]
25. Point 2Quotations generally should be kept short.
26. Negative Example B In The Odyssey’s opening lines, Homer implicitly likens the telling of a tale to the sailing of a ship: “Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, / start from where you will—sing for our time too” (1.11-12).
27. Negative Example B In The Odyssey’s opening lines, Homer implicitly likens the telling of a tale to the sailing of a ship: “Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, / start from where you will—sing for our time too” (1.11-12).
28. Example B - improved In The Odyssey’s opening lines, Homer implicitly likens the telling of a tale to the sailing of a ship when he invokes the muse to “Launch out on [the] story” (1.11).
29. Example B - improved In The Odyssey’s opening lines, Homer implicitly likens the telling of a tale to the sailing of a ship when he invokes the muse to “Launch out on [the] story” (1.11).
30. Point 2Quotations generally should be kept short.Using brief quotations is the most reliable way to indicate what particular language secures your claim.
31. Point 3Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.
32. Negative Example COdysseus lets his ego get the best of him, and out of stupidity tells the Cyclops what his real name is as he is leaving. Little did he know that Polyphemos was a son of Poseidon. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly / I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, / grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, / who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach home” (9.528-31).
33. Negative Example COdysseus lets his ego get the best of him, and out of stupidity tells the Cyclops what his real name is as he is leaving. Little did he know that Polyphemos was a son of Poseidon. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly / I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, / grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, / who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach home” (9.528-31).
34. Negative Example COdysseus lets his ego get the best of him, and out of stupidity tells the Cyclops what his real name is as he is leaving. Little did he know that Polyphemos was a son of Poseidon. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly / I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, / grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, / who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach home” (9.528-31).
35. Negative Example COdysseus lets his ego get the best of him, and out of stupidity tells the Cyclops what his real name is as he is leaving. Little did he know that Polyphemos was a son of Poseidon. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly / I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, / grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, / who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach home” (9.528-31).
36. Point 3Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.Many quotations are hard or impossible to interpret without a sense of their context. “Nothing, my lord” from King Lear’s virtuous Cordelia in scene 1 registers differently from “Nothing, my lord” as spoken by the ambitiously treacherous Edmund in scene 2.
37. Point 3Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.Many quotations are hard or impossible to interpret without a sense of their context. “Nothing, my lord” from King Lear’s virtuous Cordelia in scene 1 registers differently from “Nothing, my lord” as spoken by the ambitiously treacherous Edmund in scene 2. Dante’s Virgil can urge the pilgrim to “let pleasure be your guide” only at the threshold of Earthly Paradise (Purg. 27.131). Had he said this earlier—say, in Hell—disaster might have ensued.
38. Point 3Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.Many quotations are hard or impossible to interpret without a sense of their context. “Nothing, my lord” from King Lear’s virtuous Cordelia in scene 1 registers differently from “Nothing, my lord” as spoken by the ambitiously treacherous Edmund in scene 2. Dante’s Virgil can urge the pilgrim to “let pleasure be your guide” only at the threshold of Earthly Paradise (Purg. 27.131). Had he said this earlier—say, in Hell—disaster might have ensued.For guidance on how to understand a given statement, we often need to know by whom and under what circumstances the statement has been made.
39. Negative Example COdysseus lets his ego get the best of him, and out of stupidity tells the Cyclops what his real name is as he is leaving. Little did he know that Polyphemos was a son of Poseidon. “Hear me, Poseidon who circle the earth, dark-haired. If truly / I am your son, and you acknowledge yourself as my father, / grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, / who makes his home in Ithaka, may never reach home” (9.528-31).
40. Point 4 – The Big OneQuotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.
41. Point 4 – The Big OneQuotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.So: the unquoted prose of the interpretive sentence articulates the claim and situates one or more brief quotations.
42. Point 4 – The Big OneQuotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.So: the unquoted prose of the interpretive sentence articulates the claim and situates one or more brief quotations.And: these brief quotations provide the textual evidence that supports the claim (and little or nothing more).
43. Point 4 – The Big OneQuotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.So: the unquoted prose of the interpretive sentence articulates the claim and situates one or more brief quotations.And: these brief quotations provide the textual evidence that supports the claim.The two complement each other like well-matched spouses.
44. Point 4 – The Big OneQuotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.So: the unquoted prose of the interpretive sentence articulates the claim and situates one or more brief quotations.And: these brief quotations direct attention to the textual evidence that supports the claim.The two complement each other like well-matched spouses.The sentence’s grammar plays the role of matrimony.
45. Point 4 implies Points 1, 2, and 3Quotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.Quotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.Quotations generally should be kept short.Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.
46. Negative Example DPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders the bed he had built to be moved. “Put the firm bed here outside for him, and cover it / over with fleeces and blankets, and with shining coverlets” (23.179-80).
47. Example D – very minor improvementPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders the bed he had built to be moved: “Put the firm bed here outside for him, and cover it / over with fleeces and blankets, and with shining coverlets” (23.179-80).[Integrate the evidential quotation into the claim-making sentence.]
48. Example D – further improvedPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders the bed he had built to be moved: “Put the firm bed here outside for him, and cover it / over with fleeces and blankets, and with shining coverlets” (23.179-80).[These details are irrelevant to the argument.]
49. Example D – further improvedPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders the bed he had built to be moved: “Put the firm bed here outside for him” (23.179).[But the quotation remains somewhat isolated.]
50. Example D – final versionPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders their “firm bed” to be moved “here outside for him” (23.179).[That’s better!]
51. Example D – longer versionPenelope turns upon Odysseus the kind of trick he has used upon others when she orders their “firm bed” to be moved “here outside for him” (23.179). When he protests that “it would be difficult . . . / To change its position” because, having built their marital chamber around an olive tree’s trunk, he “ma[de] a bed post of it,” Odysseus passes, by virtue of his sincere confusion, her clever test (184-86, 198).
52. Example D – and so on . . .Husband and wife thus exemplify the “sweet agreement” of like-mindedness (homophrosyne) that Odysseus had recommended to the Phaiakian princess, Nausikaa, as the “steadfast” basis for “a harmonious household” (6.181, 182, 183-84).
53. Thank You!Quotations should serve primarily as evidence for interpretive claims.Quotations generally should be kept short.Quotations should be situated such that the scene and speaker are identified.Quotations should not be isolated; instead they should be embedded grammatically within claim-making sentences.