Literary studies

Guidance notes for literary studies, with examples

guidance notes for literary studies, with examples

Analysing characters

February 25, 2014 by Roy Johnson

how to study and understand fictional characters

Analysing characters

When studying literature, you will be asked to write about the characters in stories, plays, and novels. Most people find it easy to describe characters – that is, what they look like and what they do in the story. But it is much more difficult to analyse them. That’s because analysing characters in fiction requires not only insight into human behaviour but also the ability to make moral assessments about their psychology, motivations, and the consequences of their behaviour. This skill distinguishes an academic study of literature from casual leisure reading.

You need to know how fictional characters have been constructed by the author. After all, the very nature of a literary character is that it is a fictional construct. It’s an account of somebody who doesn’t exist in real life, but has been created by words written on paper. The character is imaginary, but if the author has been successful, we think of these characters as if they were real people. This attitude is described as a ‘suspension of disbelief’: that is, we are temporarily willing to believe that the character and the story are like real people.

Eugene Onegin

Character analysis also requires the ability to understand the complex relationship between fiction and real life – a skill which requires a fairly mature reading experience. Fortunately, most people have been exposed to fictional narratives from an early age, and will already be experienced readers by the time they are asked to make such analyses.

What is a fictional character?

A fictional character is somebody in an imaginative literary work created by an author. The character could be Peter Rabbit, David Copperfield, Macbeth, or Madame Bovary. In other media, it could be Luke Skywalker (feature film), Donald Duck (cartoon), Dan Dare (comic), Super Mario (computer game), or someone from The Archers (radio).

What we can know about a character in fiction depends almost entirely on what the author decides to tell us. Authors normally create characters using any number of devices. They might reveal to us –

their name
their physical appearance
how they dress
how they behave
what they think and feel
what they say

The composition of a character

Authors are at liberty to combine these elements in whatever way they choose. They may give different levels of emphasis to any of these options. There are no fixed rules they must follow, but the outcome must be a coherent piece of characterisation.

Charles Dickens for instance went to a lot of trouble to give his characters unusual and memorable names – Uriah Heep, Lady Honoria Deadlock, Josia Tulkinghorn, and Inspector Bucket for instance. At the other extreme, the Czech writer Franz Kafka reduced his most famous protagonist to the single letter K, with no first name or surname at all.

Some characters are memorable because of the way they are depicted visually. For instance, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations has shut herself away in an old house for years and years wearing the wedding dress she wore on the day she was jilted at the altar. She is described as a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton.

The fictional character might have a peculiar way of speaking, or a physical habit that becomes easily recognisable. Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s play The Rivals is memorable because she often uses the wrong word in her statements. She says “promise to forget this fellow – to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory” when of course she means obliterate. This characteristic is so easily recognisable that her name has been attached to that particular mis-use of language ever since – malapropism.

The good thing about this fictional technique is that it helps to fix the character in the audience’s mind. Its weakness as a technique is that it can reduce the character to no more than a verbal tic.

Some fictional characters are not given any name at all, and we know nothing about their appearance. Fyodor Dostoyevski’s Notes from Underground features a character whose name we don’t know, and whose appearance is never described. All we are told is what the character thinks – which is a torrent of existential rage against the world.

So – there are no fixed rules for the creation of fictional characters. Authors are free to tell us anything they wish about the characters they create. As readers we can merely hope that they are at least convincing or at best memorable. However, you need to be able to explain the mechanisms used to achieve this effect.

How to analyse a character

You can think of character analysis as a three part process. If you are a beginner, it will be safest to write about these parts separately. If you are more experienced, the parts may be combined – though you will still need to give your writing some structure.

First – identify the character
Second – describe the character
Third – explain the character

Identify

In the first part of the process you are merely choosing the character you wish to write about. In many literary studies courses the character will be chosen for you by a question set for an essay or term paper. It is important to choose a character who is genuinely significant and who plays a dramatic part in the story.

Part of identifying a character is knowing their importance in the story. You will probably have no difficulty in distinguishing important characters (the protagonist or most significant character for instance) from lesser or secondary characters.

Describe

In the second part of the process you are ‘locating’ the character within the story and giving an overview of what part they play in its events. The term ‘describe’ implies that you can consider the character in isolation, and give a surface account of their presence in the story. You do not have to look under the surface to discuss any of their psychological motivation at this stage.

Explain

In the third part you will give an account of the character in relation to other people in the story or the play. You should explain what motivates the character, what the significance of their actions might be, and how they relate to other characters in the story or the theme of the work in general. At this stage you might also say something about their role in the story from an artistic point of view. That is, the role of the character in relationship to the events of the narrative.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and technical terms you need when making a study of stories and novels. It shows you how to understand literary analysis by explaining its elements one at a time, then showing them at work in short stories which are reproduced as part of the book. Topics covered include – setting, characters, story, point of view, symbolism, narrators, theme, construction, metaphors, irony, prose style, tone, and interpretation. The book also contains self-assessment exercises, so you can check your understanding of each topic. Best-selling title, written by the author of these web pages.

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Character analysis – example

Identify

Joe Gargery in Great Expectations is very significant as a character. He acts as a formative influence on Pip; he is unwavering in his support for him throughout the novel; and he is instrumental in rescuing Pip from moral shoddiness in the final parts of the novel.

Describe

Joe is married to Pip’s elder sister and is therefore technically his brother-in-law; but he acts very much as a protective father-figure during Pip’s early life. Joe is naive, sometimes unconsciously comic, hard working and loving.

Explain

Joe represents the simple good nature that Dickens contrasts with Pip’s self-seeking complexity. His role as a constant in Pip’s life throws into sharp relief Pip’s plunge into increasing bad faith. The character of Joe is used as a fixed point by which we can trace Pip’s downfall and finally his moral redemption and recovery. Joe is also a comic foil against Mrs Joe’s violent behaviour as his termagant wife.

There is also a complex element in Joe’s child-like characterisation in relation to his wife Mrs Joe. He tolerates and never challenges his wife’s abusive behaviour towards both himself and her young brother Pip.

Narrative perspective

Thus far we have basic information about a fictional character – which we might call characteristics. But in addition, the author might provide any of the following information as well.

what the author thinks about them
what other characters think about them
what happens to them

This does not obtain so much in plays, where the author normally prescribes the appearance of characters and what they say – but nothing else. The point of view or perspective in this case is provided by the director of the play, in deciding how the play will be presented and how the characters will behave on stage.

In narrative fiction (novels and stories) you are likely to be presented with information about characters from a number of different sources – from the author, from other characters, possibly from a narrator, and of course from the characters themselves. Not all these items of information carry equal weight, and you will need to make careful discriminations in making your judgements.

Stock characters

What is a stock character? It’s a fictional creation that is a recognisable type who occurs in lots of other stories. This is what’s called a stereotype. Here are some examples you will recognise:

the miser
the mysterious stranger
the wicked stepmother
the absent-minded professor
the whore with a heart of gold
the damsel in distress
the hard boiled detective
the femme fatale
the gentleman thief

New stereotypes are being created all the time – and may be generated by new genres of fiction from film, television, and other media, as well as from the traditional literary genres of story, novel, and play.

Two and three-dimensional characters

The term two-dimensional character is used as an expression of negative criticism to label a character who always behaves in the same way, and does not change or grow as a result of the events in the story. They are sometimes referred to as cardboard or flat characters – as being flimsy, undeveloped, and not particularly credible.

It is a term used in contradistinction to a three-dimensional character which is used to describe fictional characters who have the depth and complexities of real human beings, and are therefore deemed more successful creations.

This ‘third’ dimension might be the capacity to change as a result of events in the story; it might be the successful depiction of contradictory beliefs and behaviour; or it might be acting on an irrational impulse – something which human beings are doing all the time.

For instance, in A Tale of Two Cities Sydney Carton is a cynical and alcoholic barrister who acts in a self-indulgent and disreputable manner throughout the majority of the novel. But at the end of story he takes another man’s place at the guillotine – an act of self-sacrifice which atones for all his past wrongdoings. Dickens makes the change of character credible, and Carton’s last words (his thoughts) have become famous: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Dubious characters

Successfully realised characters are not necessarily likeable or even decent. Authors are at liberty to create characters who are flawed, and they might still be attractive or memorable..

Fagin in Oliver Twist is a grizzly old rogue who runs a children’s criminal gang. He mistreats the members of the gang, tells lies, and is partly responsible for the death of an innocent woman (Nancy). Despite all these negative characteristics, he is so vividly portrayed by Dickens that he remains a standout and very memorable figure in the novel.

Some characters might be likeable even though they commit reprehensible acts. Vladimir Nabokov’s protagonist Humbert Humbert in Lolita is attractively clever and very amusing, even though he abducts and sexually abuses a teenage girl and murders his rival, Claire Quilty. But the first-person account of events Humbert delivers is so full of jokes and witty observations of American life, that we tend to overlook his flaws.

Providing evidence

A detailed character analysis depends on a close reading of the text, coupled with an understanding of the character. It also requires evidence drawn from the text to support any argument about the character.

It is not enough to say that you don’t like a character, or disapprove of something they do in the story. What you are doing is closer to showing that you understand what the author is trying to demonstrate to the reader. This is the reason that it is necessary to understand the literary techniques by which characters are created.

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Analysing fiction – a glossary

November 1, 2009 by Roy Johnson

a checklist of literary terms

Analysing fiction requires that you are able to name and describe the features of a story or a novel that you find interesting. This means having a clear understanding of language and grammar, plus the basic elements of narrative prose. The definitions below are just the beginning. This is where the complex process of analysing fiction starts.

Vocabulary
The author’s choice of individual words – which may be drawn from various registers such as colloquial, literary, technical, slang, journalism, and may vary from simple and direct to complex and sophisticated.

Grammar
The relationships of the words in sentences, which might include such items as the use of adjectives for description, of verbs to denote action, switching between tenses to move between present and past, or any use of unusual combinations of words or phrases to create special effects.

Syntax
The arrangement and logical coherence of words in a sentence. The possibilities for re-arrangement are often used for emphasis or dramatic effect.

Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices often used to give decorative and imaginative expression to literature. For example – simile, metaphor, puns, irony.

Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to give added depth to a work. For example, imagery, point of view, symbolism, allusions.

Tone
The author’s attitude to the subject as revealed in the style and the manner of the writing. This might be for instance serious, comic, or ironic.

Narrator
The person telling the story. This may be the author, assuming a full knowledge of characters and their feelings: this is an omniscient narrator. It might alternatively be a fictional character invented by the author. There may also be multiple narrators. You should always be prepared to make a clear distinction between Author, Narrator, and Character – even though in some texts these may be (or appear to be) the same.

Chris Baldick’s Dictionary of Literary Terms has entries which range from definitions of ‘the absurd’ to ‘zeugma’. It’s also a guide to grammatical terms, traditional drama, literary history, and textual criticism. It contains over 1000 of the most troublesome literary terms you are likely to encounter. Some of the longer entries and explanations become like short essays on their subject.

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Narrative mode
This is usually either the first person singular (‘I am going to tell you a story about…’) or the third person singular (‘The duchess felt alarmed…’).

Narrative
The story which is being told: that is, the history of the events, characters, or whatever matters the narrator wishes to relate to the reader.

Characterisation
The means by which characters are depicted or created – commonly by accounts of their physical appearance, psychological characteristics, direct speech, and the opinions of the narrator or other characters about them.

Point of view
The literary strategy by which an author presents the events of a narrative from the perspective of a particular person – which may be the narrator or may be a fictional character. The point of view may be consistent, or it may switch between narrator and character(s). It should not be confused with the mere opinion of a character or the narrator.

Structure
The planned underlying framework or shape of a piece of work. The relationship between its parts in terms of arrangement or construction.

Theme
The underlying topic or issue, often of a general or abstract nature, as distinct from the overt subject with which the work deals. It should be possible to express theme in a single word or short phrase – such as ‘death’, ‘education’, or ‘coming of age’.

Genre
The literary category or type (for instance, short story, novella, or novel) to which the work belongs and with whose conventions it might be compared. We become aware of genre through cultural experience and know for instance that in detective stories murder mysteries are solved; in fairy stories beautiful girls marry the prince; and in some modern short stories not much happens.

Cultural context
The historical and cultural context and the circumstances in which the work was produced, which might have some bearing on its possible meanings. A text produced under conditions of strict censorship might conceal its meanings beneath symbolism or allegory.

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Analysing narratives

September 9, 2012 by Roy Johnson

understanding how stories are told

What is analysing narratives?

Analysing narratives is making a critical assessment of features in a piece of work. This activity goes from making a detailed inspection of grammar and vocabulary, to offering judgements on major issues such as structure and genre.

A narrative is the account of a sequence of events. It’s the term used to describe the whole of a story, a tale, or even a process.

The term is used mainly in literary studies when discussing major genres such as the short story, the novella, and the novel. There are also narrative poems – such as Robert Browning’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1842).

A narrative is an account which has a discernable beginning, includes a sequence of events, and an outcome or a conclusion.

Narratives and media

The term narrative is also used for non-literary works. In such cases its used in a general and neutral sense, when the work does not have the consciously engineered structure of written works such as the short story or the novel.

For instance, any of the following can be considered narratives:

A newspaper report of a natural disaster such as a volcanic eruption
A television documentary covering the whole of a general election
The description of a manufacturing process such as car production

The analysis of narratives is a form of study which arose in literary studies, and has been continued in related cultural fields of media studies such as film, television, and even computer games.

It is even possible to have narrative paintings. The Bayeaux Tapestries for instance provide an account of the Battle of Hastings in 1066, depicting a sequence of its key events, but all presented simultaneously within one frame.

The language of narratives

The term narrative is used to described the whole of the piece of writing or the sequence of its events – as in

The narrative of Great Expectations is one in which Dickens combines all his favourite themes and unites them with a complex plot which is full of dramatic suspense.

The term story is used to describe the content of the narrative – as in

The story of Great Expectations is one of a young boy from a humble country background who becomes a London gentleman. In doing so he loses his moral sense – only to recover himself through painful scenes of redemption.

You can see that this is an extremely compressed summary of the novel which focuses only on its most important theme and excludes any of its smaller details.

The term theme is used to describe the underlying topic or issue of the narrative. This is often of a general or abstract nature, as distinct from the overt subject with which the work deals. It should be possible to express theme in a single word or short phrase such as ‘redemption through suffering’, ‘moral education’, or ‘coming of age’.

The term plot is used to describe the manner in which elements of the narrative have been arranged to create dramatic interest, suspense, and possibly surprise. This arrangement could be the withholding of certain information, rearranging the sequence in which it is revealed, or embedding mysteries which only become clear when a later piece of information is presented.

A surprising turn of events, or the unmasking of a hidden identity are well-known plot devices of traditional fiction. Contemporary readers might feel that such devices have been so over-used as to become poor clichés.

Narrative mode

It is the author who writes the story, But an author can choose to convey events using one of what are called narrative modes. The two simplest are the first person singular (‘I’) and the third person singular (‘he’).

It is also possible to have stories related by multiple narrators. This is a device often used to present events from different perspectives or points of view.

Modern writers have also introduced further complexities into their stories by using what are called unreliable narrators. These are first person accounts given by characters with a limited, distorted, or even mistaken understanding of events.

First person narrators

The author creates a character who tells the story from his or her own point of view. That character may or may not be part of the story. Charles Dickens’ famous novel David Copperfield (1867) is an example of someone telling their own life story and participating in its events as one of the characters in the novel. Dickens is the author, David Copperfield is the narrator, and he is also a character in the story.

F Scott-Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925) is largely concerned with the mysterious and very rich Jay Gatsby, but it is narrated by Nick Carraway, one of his neighbours and also a participating character in the novel.

Fyodor Dostoyevski on the other hand has a first person narrator in Notes from Underground (1864) whose name we never know. Almost the entire events of the novella consist of what’s going on in his head.

First person narrators tend to create a strong relationship with the reader, and many authors exploit this attraction to make the narrator persuasive or acceptable. The important thing to keep in mind is that the narrator does not necessarily represent the author’s own personal opinions.

Sometimes the author may act as the first person narrator, or make little attempt to create a fictional constructed character. But readers should never assume that narrators are a direct reflection of the author’s own opinions.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and technical terms you need when making a study of stories and novels. It shows you how to understand literary analysis by explaining its elements one at a time, then showing them at work in short stories which are reproduced as part of the book. Topics covered include – setting, characters, story, point of view, symbolism, narrators, theme, construction, metaphors, irony, prose style, tone, close reading, and interpretation. The book also contains self-assessment exercises, so you can check your understanding of each topic. The book was written by the author of these web page guidance notes.

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Third person narrators

This is the most traditional manner of delivering narratives, in which the author creates a distance between author, character, and reader.

John Belstaff was a gentleman farmer who had lived at Aylesbury Reach ever since inheriting the property from his father twenty years previously. He had worked the land to profitable advantage during that time, and was now looking forward to a peaceful retirement.

All the information we have about such a character is presented to us by the author, and there is no intervening narrator. This gives the author an opportunity to create multiple characters in a single narrative, and to show events from their different points of view. If the author chooses to reveal the innermost thoughts and feelings of any characters, this approach is known as omniscient narrative mode.

Jane Austen uses a third person narrative mode for her novel Pride and Pejudice (1813). But part its charm is the ironic and witty authorial observations she scatters through the narrative.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Omniscient narrators

The term omniscient means ‘all-knowing’ or ‘all-seing’. It comes from the language of religion, and in this sense the author is presenting a God-like view of events in which the characters’ innermost thoughts, feelings, and aspirations are revealed.

Authors are at liberty to tell us as much or as little about their characters as they wish, but once they have chosen an omniscient mode of narration they cannot claim ignorance about any aspect of their story. Having said that, many of them sometimes do – in order to create the impression of honesty or an ordinary human intelligence at work.

Unreliable narrators

Many modern writers have created what are called unreliable narrators. In this case a story is told in the first person mode by a narrator who has flawed perceptions, a limited understanding of events, or who maybe even tells lies. In such cases the reader is given the additional task of unravelling the ‘true’ story from information some parts of which are misleading.

A very famous case in point is Henry James’ ghost story The Turn of the Screw (1898). In this a governess to two children in a large country house provides a dramatic account of how they have been demonically possessed by the spirits of former servants who are now dead. The story has become famous because it can be interpreted in a number of different ways. The governess does not provide any evidence to support the claims she makes, and she invents scenes which nobody else in the story observes. However, the reader only has her account from which to make any sense of what is actually happening. It is only by comparing small details of her account that we can see that she is an unreliable narrator.

In fact this story has both a first person outer narrator, and an inner narrator who reads a copy of the written account of events created by the governess herself – making it an extremely complex thread to unravel.

Another (very amusing) example is Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire (1962) in which his first person narrator Charles Kinbote edits a long poem in four cantos composed by an American writer who was his campus neighbour. On the surface, the poem is composed of scenes from the poet’s life and his philosophic reflections on domestic relationships.

But in a series of extended footnotes Kinbote analyses the poem in detail for hidden meanings. He reveals that it contains a subtly coded account of Kinbote’s own life, and his dramatic escape from eastern Europe which he had privately related to the poet as part of their friendship. Since the poet is dead, we only have Kinbote’s own word for the truth in any of his claims. However, Nabokov provides the reader with enough information to work out that Kinbote is a madman, and all his interpretations and literary detective work is a pack of lies.

The framed narrative

Many stories begin with a first or third person narrator who establishes the circumstances by which the story is known, In other words, somebody (named or un-named) informs the reader how the details of the story have come into being. The scene is set, or some prefatory knowledge is imparted. This takes the form of an introduction.

Then the main substance of the story is related, which constitutes the bulk of the narrative. This may be presented by the opening narrator, or it might be information from a different source – a second narrator, or a story passed on via letters or a diary from someone else.

At the end of the narrative, there is usually a return to the first narrator, who might reflect on the substance of what has been revealed. This is the ‘conclusion’ or the closing part of the overall narrative.

Such a case is called a framed narrative. An outer narrator passes the storytelling over to an inner narrator who relates the bulk of events.

A famous and much-discussed example is Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1898). The story begins on board a ship moored in the Thames estuary, where a group of experienced seamen are reminiscing about their maritime experiences. An un-named outer narrator sets the scene, and then introduces Captain Marlow, who regales the company with the story of a journey he once made into the interior of Africa.

As readers we tend to forget all about the outer narrator, and even that the main events of the story are being spoken by Marlow. But at the end, when Marlow has finished his tale, the outer narrator comes back onto the page to ‘remind’ us that we are still on a ship in the Thames. The main narrative of a journey up an African river is ‘framed’ by the setting on the Thames, and the reader is implicitly being invited to draw parallels between the two.

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Analysis of a Shakespeare sonnet

October 31, 2009 by Roy Johnson

sample answer to an examination question

This analysis of a shakespeare sonnet is an example of literary analysis at third year undergraduate level. It’s also an example of an answer to an essay question set for a final-year exam paper. It poses the fairly standard test of analysing one of the sonnets. This is one of three questions to be answered in three hours. So – allowing ten minutes for making notes and maybe an outline plan, this shows what can be done in fifty minutes!

Question
Write an essay on the following sonnet. Your answer should:

briefly summarize the argument of the sonnet
comment on the language Shakespeare employs and the way that language reflects the sonnet’s argument

You may wish to refer to other sonnets in your answer, but any references to other texts must be relevant to your broader argument.

Sonnet XXII
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary,
As I not for myself but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav’st me thine, not to give back again.

Answer

In Sonnet 22, the speaker contemplates the difference in age between himself and his beloved, and asserts that he obtains youth through his relationship with the young man. In the second quatrain the speaker explains that the reason for this is the love between the himself and the young man which is portrayed as a mutual exchange of hearts, with the implication that the two have become one flesh. The speaker urges the young man to take care of himself and promises to be faithful to the young man. In the couplet, the motivating factor for the poem becomes clear, with the speaker acknowledging that he is afraid that his heart may be broken by the young man.

Although there are no personal pronouns which can confirm the sex of the addressee of the sonnet, the first 126 sonnets are assumed by critics to have been written to a young man. Sonnet 22 appears shortly after the early group of poems which urged the young man to have a child, and is one of the first sonnets to focus upon the speaker’s feelings.

The structure of the sonnet is 4-4-4-2, although there is a change of emphasis and tone after the 8th line which means that the sonnet has a distinguishable octave and sestet.

In the first quatrain, the speaker focuses upon youth and age and the disparity in age between himself and the young man. The opening line shows the speaker looking at himself in a mirror or ‘glass’ and is an echo of the opening line of sonnet 3 in which the young man was urged to look at himself in a mirror as a warning against growing old and remaining childless. The imagery of Q1 emphasises the disparity with ‘old’, ‘youth’, ‘date’, ‘death’ and the metaphor of ‘times furrows’ which effectively describes the wrinkles that the speaker has now and which the young man will have in the future’. The emphasis of this quatrain is on outward, physical appearance. The quatrain ends with the speaker looking forward to his own death which he hopes will be peaceful.

In the second quatrain, the emphasis changes and the poet uses an extended metaphor of the exchange of hearts to describe the mutual love between himself and the young man. The exchange of hearts was and still is a common motif of love poetry. However in this sonnet it is examined in a more literal way with the speaker suggesting that the two have actually exchanged hearts with the outward beauty of the young man being but ‘the seemly raiment of my heart’. Here the clothing imagery and the reference to the young man’s beauty link back to Q1 and the stress on external appearance.

Line 7, ‘which in thy breast doth live as thine in me’ is an allusion to the marriage service in which it is suggested that man and woman become one flesh. This, together with the opening lines which make the same suggestion, have convinced some critics that the relationship between the speaker and the young man is a consummated love affair. This however, is a contentious issue and one upon which critics remain divided.

The final line of Q2 links back to the opening line, with the speaker again referring to the age difference, this time asking the rhetorical question ‘How can I then be elder than thou art?’ again suggesting that the two have become one.

In the 3rd quatrain there is a change of tone, with the speaker making a direct exhortation to his beloved. ‘O therefore love, be of thyself so wary’. The heart imagery continues and the speaker uses similes of ‘nurse’ and ‘babe’ to describe himself and the young man’s heart. These similes have a two fold effect. Firstly, despite the speakers assertions to the contrary, they emphasis the difference in age between the speaker and the young man. However, they also change the imagery of the poems from those of old age such as ‘times furrows’ which was present in Q1, to ones of youth. In his way, the poem moves from age to youth. The structure of the sonnet therefore demonstrates the rejuvenation that the speaker is claiming to receive because of his relationship with the young man.

In the couplet, the motivation for the sonnet becomes clear. The poet is concerned that the young man will leave him and this will break his heart. He uses the word ‘slain’ which suggests murder and is in contrast to the peaceful death of old age that the speaker was wishing for in the first quatrain. The ‘heart’ is again the focus of the couplet, thus linking back to the 2nd and 3rd quatrains. Here however, there is the suggestion that the young man may want to take his heart back or leave the speaker. The poet warns him ‘presume not on thy heart when mine is slain’. The implication is that if the young man breaks the speaker’s heart, he will not get his own heart back – leaving him heartless – with the suggestion of cruelty.

In his sonnet, just as the imagery moves backwards from death to birth but with a final reference to death in the couplet, the quatrains take on new meanings in light of those that follow. Q1 is an assertion that the speaker is not old, Q2 explains the reasons for this assertion. Q3 is an exhortation to the speaker and the couplet explains the fear of being left broken hearted which is the underlying reason for the sonnet.

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Bleak House close reading

September 30, 2009 by Roy Johnson

reading skills in the critical analysis of a text

What is close reading?

1. Close reading is the most important skill you need for any form of literary studies. It means paying especially close attention to what is printed on the page. It is a much more subtle and complex process than the term might suggest.

2. Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words; it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of language as it is used by skilled writers.

3. This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

4. Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex.

Linguistic
You pay especially close attention to the surface linguistic elements of the text – that is, to aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. You might also note such things as figures of speech or any other features which contribute to the writer’s individual style.

Semantic
You take account at a deeper level of what the words mean – that is, what information they yield up, what meanings they denote and connote.

Structural
You note the possible relationships between words within the text – and this might include items from either the linguistic or semantic types of reading.

Cultural
You note the relationship of any elements of the text to things outside it. These might be other pieces of writing by the same author, or other writings of the same type by different writers. They might be items of social or cultural history, or even other academic disciplines which might seem relevant, such as philosophy or psychology.

5. Close reading is not a skill which can be developed to a sophisticated extent overnight. It requires a lot of practice in the various linguistic and literary disciplines involved – and it requires that you do a lot of reading. The good news is that most people already possess the skills required. They have acquired them automatically through being able to read – even though they havn’t been conscious of doing so. This is rather like many other things which we learn unconsciously. After all, you don’t need to know the names of your leg muscles in order to walk down the street.

6. The four types of reading also represent increasingly complex and sophisticated phases in our scrutiny of the text.

Linguistic reading is largely descriptive. We are noting what is in the text and naming its parts for possible use in the next stage of reading.

Semantic reading is cognitive. That is, we need to understand what the words are telling us – both at a surface and maybe at an implicit level.

Structural reading is analytic. We must assess, examine, sift, and judge a large number of items from within the text in their relationships to each other.

Cultural reading is interpretive. We offer judgements on the work in its general relationship to a large body of cultural material outside it.

7. The first and second of these stages are the sorts of activity designated as ‘Beginners’ level; the third takes us to ‘Intermediate’; and the fourth to ‘Advanced’ and beyond.

8. One of the first things you need to acquire for serious literary study is a knowledge of the vocabulary, the technical language, indeed the jargon in which literature is discussed. You need to acquaint yourself with the technical vocabulary of the discipline and then go on to study how its parts work.

9. What follows is a short list of features you might keep in mind whilst reading. They should give you ideas of what to look for. It is just a prompt to help you get under way.

Close reading – Checklist

Grammar
The relationships of the words in sentences
Examples

Vocabulary
The author’s choice of individual words
Examples

Figures of speech
The rhetorical devices used to give decoration and imaginative expression to literature, such as simile or metaphor
Examples

Literary devices
The devices commonly used in literature to give added depth to the work, such as imagery or symbolism
Examples

Tone
The author’s attitude to the subject as revealed in the manner of the writing
Examples

Style
The author’s particular choice and combination of all these features of writing which creates a recognisable and distinctive manner of writing.
Examples

10. Now here’s an example of close reading in action. The short passage which follows comes from the famous opening to Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.

London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full grown snowflakes – gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.

This is the sort of writing which many people, asked for their first impressions, would say was very ‘descriptive’. But if you looked at it closely enough you will have seen that it is imaginative rather than descriptive. It doesn’t ‘describe what is there’ – but it invents images and impressions. There is as much “it was as if …” material in the extract as there is anything descriptive. What follows is a close reading of the extract, with comments listed in the order that they appear in the extract.

London
This is an abrupt and astonishingly short ‘sentence’ with which to start a six hundred page novel. In fact technically, it is grammatically incomplete, because it does not have a verb or an object. It somehow implies the meaning ‘The scene is London.’

Sentence construction
In fact each of the first four sentences here are ‘incomplete’ in this sense. Dickens is taking liberties with conventional grammar – and obviously he is writing for a literate and fairly sophisticated readership.

Sentence length
These four sentences vary from one word to forty-three words in length. This helps to create entertaining variation and robust flexibility in his prose style.

Michaelmas Term
There are several names (proper nouns) in these sentences, all signalled by capital letters (London, Michaelmas Term, Lord Chancellor, Lincoln’s Inn Hall, November, Holborn Hill). This helps to create the very credible and realistic world Dickens presents in his fiction. We believe that this is the same London which we could visit today. The names also emphasise the very specific and concrete nature of the world he creates.

Michaelmas Term
This occurs in autumn. It comes from the language of the old universities (Oxford and Cambridge) which is shared by the legal profession and the Church.

Lord Chancellor sitting
Here ‘sitting’ is a present participle. The novel is being told in the present tense at this point, which is rather unusual. The effect is to give vividness and immediacy to the story. We are being persuaded that these events are taking place now.

Implacable
This is an unusual and very strong term to describe the weather. It means ‘that which cannot be appeased’. What it reflects is Dickens’s genius for making almost everything in his writing original, striking, and dramatic.

as if
This is the start of his extended simile comparing the muddy streets with the primeval world.

the waters
There is a slight Biblical echo here, which also fits neatly with the idea of an ancient world he is summoning up.

but newly and wonderful
These are slightly archaic expressions. We might normally expect ‘recently’ and ‘astonishing’ but Dickens is selecting his vocabulary to suit the subject – the prehistoric world. ‘Wonderful’ is being used in its original sense of – ‘something we wonder at’.

forty feet long or so
After the very specific ‘forty feet long’, the addition of ‘or so’ introduces a slightly conversational tone and a casual, almost comic effect.

waddling
This reinforces the humorous manner in which Dickens is presenting this Megalosaurus – and note the breadth of his vocabulary in naming the beast with such scientific precision.

like an elephantine lizard
This is another simile, announced by the word ‘like’. Here is Dickens’s skill with language yet again. He converts a ‘large’ noun (‘elephant’) into an adjective (‘elephantine’) and couples it to something which is usually small (‘lizard’) to describe, very appropriately it seems, his Megalosaurus.

up Holborn Hill
There is a distinct contrast, almost a shock here, in this abrupt transition from an imagined prehistoric world and its monsters to the ‘real’ world of Holborn in London.

lowering
This is another present participle, and an unusual verb. It means ‘to sink, descend, or slope downwards’. It comes from a rather ‘poetic’ verbal register, and it has a softness (there are no sharp or harsh sounds in it) which makes it very suitable for describing the movement of smoke.

soft black drizzle
He is comparing the dense smoke (from coal fires) with another form of particularly depressing atmosphere – a drizzle of rain. Notice how he goes on to elaborate the comparison.

as big as full grown snow flakes
The comparison becomes another simile: ‘as big as’. And then ‘full grown’ almost suggests that the snowflakes are human. This is a device much favoured by Dickens: it is called ‘anthropomorphism’ – attributing human qualities or characteristics to things which are themselves inanimate. Then ‘snowflakes’ is a well-observed comparison for an enlarged flake of soot, because they are of similar size and texture. Notice next how Dickens immediately goes on to play with the notion that whilst soot is black, snowflakes are white.

gone into mourning
This reinforces the anthropomorphism. The inanimate world is being brought to life. And of course ‘mourning’ reinforces the atmospheric gloom he is trying to evoke. It also introduces blackness (the colour of mourning) to explain how these snowflakes (actually flakes of soot) might have changed from white to black.

the death of the sun
This is why the flakes have changed colour. And if the sun has died the light and life it brings to earth have also been extinguished – which reinforces the atmosphere of pre-historic darkness he is creating.

We will stop at this point. It would in fact be possible to say even more about the extract if we were to relate it to the novel as a whole – but almost everything listed was accessible even if you were reading the passage for the first time.

Literary studies are not conducted in such detail all the time, but it is very important that you try to develop the skill of reading as closely as possible. It really is the foundation on which everything else is based.

The next point to make about such close reading is that it becomes easier if you get used to the idea of reading and re-reading. The Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov (famous for Lolita) once observed that “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only re-read it”.

What he meant by this apparently contradictory remark is that the first time we read a book we are busy absorbing information, and we cannot appreciate all the subtle connexions there may be between its parts – because we don’t yet have the complete picture before us. Only when we read it for a second time (or even better, a third or fourth) are we in a position to assemble and compare the nuances of meaning and the significance of its details in relation to each other.

Finally, let’s try to dispel a common misconception. Many people ask, when they first come into contact with close reading: “Doesn’t analysing a piece of work in such detail spoil your enjoyment of it?” The answer to this question is “No – on the contrary – it should enhance it.” The simple fact is that we get more out of a piece of writing if we can appreciate all the subtleties and the intricacies which exist within it. Nabokov also suggested that “In reading, one should notice and fondle the details”.

Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the language you will need for studying prose fiction. It explains the elements of literary analysis one at a time, then shows you how to apply them. The guidance starts off with simple issues of language, then progresses to more complex literary criticism.The volume contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent tales in their own right. The guidance on this site was written by the same author.
Buy the book from Amazon UK
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Bleak House (1852-53) is a powerful critique of the legal system. Characters waiting to gain their inheritance from a will which is the subject of a long-running court case are ruined when the delays and costs of the case swallow up the whole estate. At the same time, Ester Summerson, one of Dickens’ most saintly heroines, is surrounded by mystery regarding her parentage and pressure to marry a man she respects but does not love. Unraveling the mystery results in scandal and deaths. Many memorable characters, including ace sleuth Inspector Bucket; Horace Skimpole a criminally irresponsible house guest; and Krook – the ‘chancellor’ of the rag and bone department, who dies from spontaneous combustion – something which Dickens actually believed could happen.

Buy Bleak House at Amazon UK
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Bookseller jargon

February 11, 2013 by Roy Johnson

understanding the language of the book trade

When buying second-hand books you’ll often come across bookseller jargon used to describe the goods they have on offer. These descriptions appear in both printed catalogues and on web site bookstores.

The bookseller is giving an accurate description of a book and its condition, but the description often contain lots of abbreviations and specialist terms (jargon). This can sometimes appear like a secret code, and might even include abbreviations of their own bookseller jargon terms.

There is a huge specialised vocabulary involved in the book trade – terms such as ‘foxing’ to describe discoloured pages, or ‘half-binding’ to indicate that the spine will be bound in a different material, usually leather.

It’s not necessary to learn all these terms, and you can often guess at the meaning of some of them. But knowing a few of the most common expressions can help you to get a better idea of what’s on offer – and save you from making a mistake.

Knowing something about this jargon can also help you to spot bargains when buying books for as little as a penny on Internet bookshop sites.

Bookseller jargon – example I

Let’s start with a fairly straightforward example from an advert on Amazon. It’s a second-hand copy of Charles Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit. The description is quite simple, but it does introduce a few bookseller jargon terms.

Published 1935, illustrations by Phiz. Burgandy boards with gold inscription to spine, author’s signature on front. Possibly published 1935. Corners bumped and boards a little grubby. Tanning to edges, Binding is pretty tight and very little staining to pages. A few pages turned at corners. Others in series are available. Quick dispatch from Oxford based hospice charity,

author’s signature – This is very misleading, because it’s not a signature. Dickens’ signature is printed on the cover.

Corners bumped – The corners of the book covers are bent or creased with use and age.That’s fairly normal in an old book.

Tanning – The colour of the covers is fading because of exposure to light.

Binding tight – The book will not open easily and generally does not want to remain open to any given page.

pages turned at corners – A previous reader has bookmarked pages by turning down the corner of some pages.

One interesting thing to note here is that the publisher is not mentioned. In fact the publisher is Odhams, and this series was a mass-produced very cheap edition. Copies are very easy to obtain anywhere – so the price being asked for this copy (£6.85) is far too high.

Bookseller jargon – example II

Here’s a relatively simple example from AbeBooks. It’s an advert for a first edition copy of Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin. You will notice that although the advert is descriptive, a few more bookseller jargon terms creep in.

Book Description: London, The Hogarth Press, 1939, 1939. Octavo. Original rough grey cloth, titles to spine in red, top edge stained red. With the dust jacket designed by Humphrey Spender printed in black and red with a photograph of a park scene by Hans Wild. Light partial toning to endpapers, an excellent copy in the lightly rubbed dust jacket with just a couple of minor nicks and creases. First edition, first impression. Published March 1939; 3,550 copies printed.

Octavo – This is the size of the book – five inches wide and eight to nine inches tall.

toning – One of many euphemisms booksellers use to describe the discoloration of paper with age.

endpapers – The sheets of paper pasted onto the inner covers of the book

lightly rubbed – This is wear caused to the edges of the book or its dust jacket as a result of being moved on and off a shelf. Another term might be ‘scuffed’.

nicks and creases – Nicks are small cuts or abrasions, and creases are permanent folds in paper which often occur on book jackets and inner pages.

first impression – The book comes from the first batch to be printed for this title – this is a guarantee of the book’s rarity.

As you can tell from this, book collectors are very concerned about the physical condition of the books they buy — with good reason. This one was for sale for £3,750.00

Bookseller jargon – example III

Here is a much more detailed and complex example. This an advert for a set of volumes which are a genuine rarity and an antiquity from the eighteenth century essayists Addison and Steele.

Addison, Johseph; Steele, Sir Richard. THE SPECTATOR. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper 1749.
8 vols. T.p. devices., engraved frontiss., dec. head and tail pieces. Some sporadic very light browning, ex-libris Sir Thomas Miller Bt. and with sm. ownership signature, top edge of a couple of leaves in vol. 4 sl. chipped, slightly rubbed gilt filleted edges with some sl. wear to corners, full speckled calf with some minor light staining to a couple of boards, raised bands dec. gilt compartments and leather title labels to rubbed and slightly chipped spines..
£125.00

Eight volumes – This is a genuine eighteenth-centry collection for only £120.00 – which seems good value to me.

T.p. devices – Title page with devices. This page lists the title and any subtitle; the author; the publisher; and the printer.

engraved frontiss – This is an engraved illustration at the beginning of the book, usually facing the title page.

dec. head and tail pieces – A decorative ornament found at the start of a chapter or a division in a book (very common in the eighteenth century).

very light browning – This is signs of discolouration in the paper – an indication of its age.

ex-libris – A Latin term which means ‘from the library of’. This is often indicated by a small label pasted into the book’s inside cover.

sm. ownership signature – A small signature of a (or the) previous owner.

sl. chipped – Slightly chipped. This usually means that small parts of the page are missing or frayed.

gilt filleted edges – Fillets are decorative lines impressed on a book cover. These have been rubbed, and perhaps lost some of the gilding.

sl. wear to corners – Worn perhaps as the books have been taken on and off shelves.

full speckled calf – The volumes have been bound in leather – and ‘speckled’ means the calf’s hide has been treated to create small dark spots or specks.

boards – This is the heavy-duty cardboard used in the construction of the book covers.

slightly chipped spines – Futher signs of use and age. This is to be expected on something three centuries old.

A full glossary of bookseller jargon

Common abbreviations used by booksellers

Book formats and sizes

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Close reading tutorials

March 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorials in literary criticism and close critical analysis

What is close reading?

Close reading means not only reading and understanding the meanings of the individual printed words of a text: it also involves making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of a language as it is used by skilled writers.

This can mean anything from a work’s particular vocabulary, sentence construction, and imagery, to the themes that are being dealt with, the way in which the story is being told, and the view of the world that it offers. It involves almost everything from the smallest linguistic items to the largest issues of literary understanding and judgement.

language
meaning
structure
philosophy

Close reading can be seen as four separate levels of attention which we can bring to the text. Most normal people read without being aware of them, and employ all four simultaneously. The four levels or types of reading become progressively more complex. The most advanced forms of close reading combine all these features in an effort to reveal the full and even hidden meanings in a work.

A close reading exercise is not a guessing game or a treasure hunt: it is an attempt to understand the mechanisms by which a narrative is constructed and its meanings generated. However, a really successful close reading can only be made when you know the work as a whole.

The tutorials listed here offer a variety of approaches to close reading. Some focus attention on details of literary style; others concentrate on how the meaning(s) of a text are constructed. All of them pay close attention to the language being used.

Charles Dickens – Bleak House

This tutorial looks at the famous opening passage of Bleak House and examines Dickens’s use of language, simile, and metaphor. It argues that whilst Dickens is often celebrated for the vividness of his descriptions, the true genius of his literary power is in imaginative invention.

Close reading – Bleak House.

If you wish to read the complete novel in conjunction with these tutorial notes, it is available free at Project Gutenberg.

Bleak House (full text)

Joseph Conrad – An Outpost of Progress – I

This is the first of two close reading tutorials on Conrad’s early tale An Outpost of Progress. This one looks at the opening of the story and examines the semantic values transmitted in Conrad’s presentation of the narrative. That is, how the meaning(s) of the story are embedded in even the smallest details of of the prose.