Close Reading and Rhetorical Forms

Close reading is crucial to good work in English. It is the ability to generate interpretations that go beyond the literal meaning of the passage by considering all the wealth of other detail in a passage -- the sounds, the metaphors and similes, the word order, the sentence structure, the connotations of the words, the symbols, the echoes of earlier or later passages. I've included a sample about the beginning of Pride and Prejudice.

Close reading is a way to generate a thesis: if you notice a pattern, you can ask why it is there, what themes or ideas it might suggest or support. If there is a break in a pattern, you can analyze what happens at the break to make it exceptional. If you're attuned to nuances of word choice and imagery, you can see how the text is subtly urging us to judge certain characters or events.

Close reading is also a powerful source of evidence. If you like a character but are not sure why, if you think an action is judged morally wanting but can't quite articulate how you know, go back and look closely at the passages in question, and you will find evidence that will take the matter away from your own feelings (which won't do as evidence in a scholarly paper) and rest it firmly in textual details, which are admirable as evidence.

Close reading is hard. It demands reading attentively, resisting the urge to skim; it involves a good memory for what came before, so you can tell if a pattern is repeating; it involves some awareness of sound, even when you're reading silently, so you can notice the sound effects of a passage. Very often, it involves re-reading, because there is too much to take in at once. For instance, did you notice on first reading that all the paragraphs in this section start with "Close reading is"? I did it, of course, to build up the importance of close reading, to emphasize all the ways it can be used and all that is involved in doing it well. Close readers will train themselves to notice patterns like that.

Here is a small and incomplete list of things to look for while attempting a close reading. In most cases, most of these categories won't apply -- the art is finding the ones that will. Literary analysis is not an Easter-egg hunt, either; there's no point in announcing that something has a hypotactic style just for the sake of announcing it, since papers are not a contest to see who names the most rhetorical features. Use only the ones that help you prove an argument -- if the hypotactic style suggests that the narrator is analyzing too much as a way to hide his own guilt, then it's worth mentioning.

Sound Effects (these are more common in poetry but can also appear in prose)
- Sound effects link words or ideas
  - Rhyme. Repeating the sound of a syllable or word is a good way to link words together, and is often used at the end of lines of poetry. This can emphasize certain words (rhymed words get more attention than others), but it also links words together. In Chaucer's General Prologue, his description of a venial monk repeatedly rhymes words for food with words from religion ("oyster" and "closter," "pulled hen" and "holy men," "roast" and "ghost" [meaning spirit or soul, as in the Holy Ghost]. The narrator offers no direct criticism of the monk -- in fact, he likes him -- but the rhymes do suggest the devastating criticism that the monk is ignoring his religious calling for the pleasures of the flesh.
  - Alliteration. This is the repetition of consonant sounds: "at the call of king and country he died" has a triple alliteration on 'k' and hard 'c' (notice that spelling can obscure alliteration). The words linked by alliteration are often meant to be considered together; words that break the pattern stand out and receive extra emphasis. A lot of Old and Middle English poetry uses alliteration, not rhyme, as the primary sound effect.
  - Assonance. This is the repetition of vowel sounds. It is more subtle than alliteration, and more rarely used as a primary effect for suggesting associations, but there are famous exceptions: consider the "o" sound in Poe's poem "The Raven."
- Sound effects determine rhythm, speed, and mood.
  - Meter is the patterned alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables to create a basic rhythm a poet can vary for effect. Some metrical patterns (spondees, for instance) add emphasis; others can suggest moods (anapests can be used in light verse). Breaks in rhythm can suggest emotional stress or sudden shifts in ideas.
  - Word and sentence length. Series of short words can create a fast, staccato rhythm moving things forward; longer words or more complicated sentences may slow things down. There is no hard and fast rule for what these effects mean; one has to look at individual cases.
Structure in poetry. This is usually a matter of lines and stanzas.
- End-stopped lines. These contain complete grammatical units, and can sound more formal and controlled.
- Enjambed lines are separated where there is not natural pause (that is, in the middle of a grammatical unit). Enjambment can create a sense of haste or loss of control. Enjambment can extend across stanzas, which heightens the effect.
- Poetic forms. Different poems -- sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and so on -- have different stanza forms, with their own rules for structure; knowing them can help you identify words being emphasized, breaks in structure, and shifts in perspective.
Structure in prose. There are a couple things you can for. On a large scale, one can look for whether the text presents a linear narrative, moving straightforwardly toward it s conclusion, or whether it uses flashbacks and digressions. Look at when a narrative is abstract, when it is general, and when it gives specifics -- and what is described specifically and what isn't. You can look for how the point of view shifts. You can examine whether the narration, however subtly, reflects one character's opinions, or if it is objective. On the smaller scale, look how the sentences are put together.
- Periodic sentences are sentences are constructed so that can be completed only at the last words; non-periodic sentences are clauses strung together by coordinating conjunctions and could be stopped before the end. "After I went to the store, I went home" is periodic, since you can't stop anywhere in the middle and still have a complete sentence; "I went to the store and then I went home" is nonperiodic (it could be stopped after "store"). Periodic senses demand more forethought to complete, and so they will give a sense of poise and control. Nonperiodic styles can sound more relaxed or more rushed.
- Hypotactic or paratactic style. Hypotactic style uses lots of subordinating conjunctions ("since," "although," "despite," and others that would leave the clause they govern a sentence fragment is left alone), and is used to suggest explanation, reflection, and control; a paratactic style uses mainly coordinating conjunctions ("but," "and," "then," and the like that leave the clauses they govern able to stand as independent sentences).
Imagery. Imagery calls attention to certain aspects of a thing being described, and so it is important for establishing emotions and judgments. For instance, if I were to say, "Her love was more like a sunflower than a rose," without anything else, it would be a criticism (suggesting that it was overdone and gaudy, not tasteful). If, however, another character had been described as having a "sunny disposition" and "hair the color of the sun" and "a warm smile that could drive away the clouds," then the woman's sunflower love might suggest a tendency to follow him and to reflect him, and the element of criticism might fall away. Below are some common kinds of imagery.
- Simile. This is a comparison that uses "like" or "as" or some other word or phrase to call attention to its status as an artificial comparison (for instance, "similes are like bricks for building poems").. Because it calls attention to the act of comparison, a simile may reveal something about the character creating the simile, or it may reveal an emotional or moral judgment of the subject of the simile. (Suppose I had said "similes are like petals for building flowers" -- see the difference in tone?)
- Metaphor. This is a comparison that directly asserts one thing is another (my love is a red, red, rose). It can be more striking than a simile, and it is less self-consciously a creation of a speaker. An extended conceit is a metaphor that becomes the basis for an extended series of comparisons (my love is a rose, fragrant with holiness, red with desire, protected by thorns of purity, green with vigorous youth, and to be plucked only by the best man in the world).
- Synecdoche. This is using a part of something for the whole "All hands on deck" uses the synecdoche "hands" for "men." It can focus attention precisely on what is needed -- the sailors are needed on deck not for their brains or their characters or their sense of humor but just for their ability to work. It can dehumanize; it can characterize; it can control a reader's vision.
- Metonymy. This is calling something by the name of something associated with it. Calling the managers "suits" is a metonymy. Like synecdoche, this can shift vision, it can suggest connections that are not apparent, it can dehumanize (as "suits" does).
- Personification and Apostrophe. Personification is treating non-persons as persons ("My computer ate my homework"). It can suggest emotions and show a character's perspective. Apostrophe is directly addressing something as though it were present. ("Aristotle, what did you teach Alexander the Great? What did you hope he would become?") If the thing being apostrophized is not human, it will be personified by the apostrophe. What the effect is depends on circumstance.