Close reading
From W100Wiki
"Close Reading of a Literary Passage" (L. Kip Wheeler, Carson-Newman College)
"Some Close Reading Tips" (Robert Matz, George Mason University)
Close Reading Literature Handout (U. Texas at Austin)
"How to do a close reading" (Patricia Kain, The Writing Center at Harvard University)
"What is Close Reading?" (Mantex)
Close Reading Example (Claremont Graduate University)
This is a very nice example of what a close reading should be: notice the way that the author pays attention to nuance and subtlety in the passage from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Here is a wonderful description of close reading strategies from Ed Folsom of The University of Iowa English Department (geared towards a class that focuses on the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson):
Strategy: Begin with a clear statement of what you see to be the main thought the poem is working with, then show how Dickinson or Whitman complicates and explores this thought. Don't feel you have to work through the poem line by line; focus instead on the images, words, and lines that you find to be keys to understanding the poem. Lead your reader through the process you underwent of coming to grips with the difficulties of the poem. Begin by immersing yourself in the poetry. Read the poem again and again, and read it out loud. Develop a feel for the language. Really listen to the poem, to its rhythms, repetitions, insistences, odd jumps, internal rhymes, surprising connections. Memorize key lines and images so that you can live with them for a few days. Look up words and etymologies; fill the margins around the poem with notes. Sometimes it helps to paraphrase the poem, to write out a kind of "translation," but this should be for your own use and not become part of your essay. In fact, it is precisely the difference between your paraphrase of the poem and the poem itself that you want your essay to focus on--the things that the poem does and says that never quite get into your paraphrase. Don't spend a lot of time thinking about the poem before you write anything; think by writing. Writing is slow-motion thinking. Try out ideas. Write lots of thoughts on paper, no matter how unformed or silly they may initially seem. Then cull through your notes and choose the most compelling ideas; focus on them. Develop the promising ideas. Drop the ideas that seem far-fetched or that make you feel you are forcing the poem into a shape and meaning that it seems to resist: look for the ideas that enhance the poem instead of coerce it. Keep in mind that, in an essay this brief, you can't do everything. Don't try to do an exhaustive reading. Be selective. Work closely and carefully with the language of the poem, the choice of words, the surprising breaks and twists of syntax, the rhythms and the rhymes and the repetitions. Get to know your poem well enough that it becomes experience more than "message." Then work to describe the experience effectively, so that your reader can experience the poem with you. Focus on the aspects of the poem that initially confuse you. You will write a better essay if you work from confusion to clarity than if you begin with things you think you understand; you need to feel a challenge in the language in order to initiate the energy of discovery. Always proofread your final copy carefully; leave time to edit out careless errors before the essay gets to your readers, where those errors will distract from and undermine the force of your argument.
HELP:
Quoting poetry in your essays: When you quote poetry in your essay, you need to remember a few simple conventions.
If you are quoting a single phrase, you can incorporate it in your own sentence. Example: Dickinson's description of "Recess--in the ring" indicates that she associates childhood with happiness.
If you are quoting a whole line, it is usually best to introduce it with a colon. Even though the line may end with a comma or dash, you can end it with a period so that your own sentence comes to closure. Example: Dickinson uses the "d" sound twice to indicate the increasingly deadening nature of the journey: "The Dews drew quivering and chill."
If you are quoting more than one line, use a colon to introduce the quotation, and indent the poem. Since the poetry is indented, there is no need to add quotation marks. Example: Dickinson uses images of nature to suggest the closing cycle of a human life:
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--
If you leave material out of the quotation, use ellipses (. . .) to indicate to your reader that there is more there. Example: Dickinson reminds us that "The Carriage held . . . Immortality."
If you quote a passage that cuts across two or more lines of poetry, indicate the line break with a slash (/). Example: Dickinson tells us that she "put away / My labor and my leisure."
There's no need to include page numbers or line numbers, as long as you are quoting from the poem you are focusing on. If you quote from another poem, you should put the poem number from Dickinson's Complete Poems in parentheses. Example: Dickinson portrays death as a lover in other poems as well, as when she calls him "the supple Suitor" (#1445).
If you quote other critics or books, you should include the page number in parentheses, and then add a page at the end of your essay, listing the authors, titles, publishers, and publication dates of all the books you quote from. Use critics only to get your argument going: do not simply paraphrase or mimic a critic's reading of the poem. Be sure you've struggled with the poem on your own before reading what others have to say: that way, you will have a foundation from which to argue with other views. Don't forget that you have Habegger's biography as a useful resource to fill in information about Dickinson's life that may help you support your arguments about the poem. For general useful advice about writing about poetry, go to Resources page and check the links under general sites, or use the links here for good sites about how to go about reading a poem, how to incorporate quotations into your essay, and how to write about literature:
How to read poetry: [1]
How to quote and cite literary works: [2]
Advice about writing essays about literature: [3]
