Close reading names a special kind of attention to a text: an attention not just to content but to form (to how an idea is communicated, a feeling is expressed, or a story is told), not just to the whole but to the parts (the lines, the words, the figures of speech, the syllables) that make it up. We read closely because its opposite (distant reading?) can miss things: we can summarize the basic story, the main idea, but in doing so we fail to grasp the texture of a work, the experience of it, the techniques that produce its effects. In this essay, you’ll write about one of the texts we’ve read recently by narrowing your focus to a single short passage. Your goal is to write an essay that makes an interpretive claim about the passage and, by extension, about the work that it comes from. Your claim should do more than tell us what the passage/text says; it should help us see the techniques that it uses to make its meaning. How does the diction—the choice of words—introduce connotations that shade our sense of what we read? What figures of speech (similes, metaphors, personifications, etc.) does the text employ, and why these figures? Are there tensions or contradictions—places where the text seems to cut against its apparent meaning? Are there ambiguities, places where it’s hard to tell what exactly the text is trying to say? By paying attention to these things, you can gain a deeper perspective on the major thematic issues that the larger text raises. The best interpretations don’t just focus on the big picture, and they don’t get lost in the details either. Instead, they connect part to whole. That’s what close reading is about, and it’s what you’re going to do in this essay. I suggest one of these passages, though you may choose your own: 1) Oedipus Rex, ll. ll. 1480-1514 (“O children, where are you? …”); 2) Aeneid 6.606-39 (“Among them, with her fatal wound still fresh…”). If you choose your own, run it by me first. To start, read and re-read the passage you’ve chosen to work on. Read with a pen in hand and mark the page up: circle words that are unfamiliar or striking; note metaphors and other figures of speech; look for ambiguities and contradictions. Then think about how what you’ve turned up fits together. Is there a pattern that emerges? A connection between ideas that you hadn’t noticed before? A way of talking about a key theme that keeps reappearing? A tension that the passage is struggling to resolve? Once you’ve identified this pattern or problem, you have the germ of a paper, and your task is to develop it into a cohesive argument. Your essay should have a central claim, usually presented in the first paragraph (along with some set-up helping us see why the claim you’ll make matters—why it answers an important question about the text you’re working on). A good claim is specific and arguable: it’s not so obvious that you can’t imagine someone disagreeing with it. But it’s also supportable: an argument that you can make persuasive through your discussion of the textual evidence. It should also have textual evidence. Not merely summary or paraphrase, but specific lines quoted directly and analyzed. Remember that “analyze” means “break down”—when you quote a passage, break it down for us in your discussion so we can see what the significant components of it are. Show us how a piece of evidence warrants the conclusion you draw from it. Your evidence should bear out, or allow you to productively complicate, your central claim. Finally, your essay should be cohesive. Try to avoid the form of the “five-paragraph essay.” Rather than giving us a series of unrelated points, develop and complicate your argument as you go, moving from the more basic or easily accepted parts of your claim to the more difficult and original parts. Remember that your task is to deepen our grasp of a text’s complexity, not to slam-dunk an open-and-shut case (to mix metaphors). You don’t need to do any outside research for this essay; the primary focus should be on your own reading of the text you choose to work on. If you do use outside sources, however, make sure to cite them in an MLA-style works cited page (and in text).
