Performing Close Reading
Sarah Guayante
“[T]he interpretive work we call close reading is a form of writing […] Close reading as a method thus involves the confrontation and commingling of one’s own words and words out there in the world. Such writing about writing is reading only in the metaphorical sense.” –Jonathan Kramnick, “Criticism and Truth” [1]
What does it mean to “perform a close reading”? Take a text like Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” soliloquy. Does “performing a close reading” mean to orally or textually break down the text word-by-word, like Sir Ian McKellen does? Or, does it mean to “perform” (in a literal sense) a coherent interpretation of the text derived from close reading, like Denzel Washington does?
As we’ll discuss in class, close reading, as a form of reading, is about breaking the text apart. Close reading, as a form of writing, is about putting the text back together again. If, while reading, we have identified formal elements that disrupt the unity of the poem, then our goal when writing is to make those parts cohere. Here’s Elaine Auyoung speaking about the value of coherence in literary criticism in her article, “What We Mean by Reading”:
Far from capturing the messiness and multiplicity of their actual experiences of reading, critics construct coherent arguments by presenting an extremely limited selection of the inferences they have made during the reading process. […] When critics alert us to fresh ways in which certain parts of a literary text cohere, they enable us to perceive new ways to organize and make sense of an artwork whose complexity continues to reward specialized attention.[2]
What does it mean to “construct coherent arguments?” As an example, take a look at this model paper from Joanna Wolfe’s and Laura Wilder’s Digging into Literature: Strategies for Reading, Writing, and Analysis. Use the questions below to help you determine how the writer “constructs [a] coherent argument[]” (Auyoung, 94).
Model Paper Exercise
Use the questions below to help you determine how the writer “constructs [a] coherent argument[]” (Auyoung, 94).
- Where is the interpretive problem, analytical thesis statement, and analysis chunks?
- Take a look at the line numbers of the writer’s textual evidence. Does the writer discuss the poem in order or do they re-arrange the poem? Why do you think this is so?
- How does the writer organize their evidence? Do you notice any patterns of arrangement?
- How much evidence do they use? A lot? Passages? Lines? Words? Phrases? What is the average length of quotation here?
- Does the essay feel coherent? When or where does the essay develop coherence?
Finally, read Andrew Goldstone’s “Close Reading as Genre” essay. Does the model essay fulfill the requirements of this genre?
An instance of talking to or conversing with oneself, or of uttering one's thoughts aloud without addressing any person.
“Soliloquy, N., Sense 1.a.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2116235249.
