ReadingLiterature Closely
Explication
What is literature?
Is literature a collection of work embodying
eternal truths and eternal beauty?
Or is all literature just marks on paper or
sounds in the air, which the audience turns into
something with meaning? And different
audiences will construct different meanings out
of what they see or hear?
Literature & Form
“Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” Thomas Gray
“Again and again writers find
something in their experience,
or see something in the life around
them, that seems so important they
cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion.
There must never come a time, the writer
feels, when people do not know about this.”
-Lady Murasaki, Tale of Genji
Literature & Form
In other words, literature is both about
substance (the profound experience being
transmitted) and shape (the form that
transmission takes).
Thoughts that breathe,
and words that burn.
What is being told and the way it’s being told
Proverbs
A proverb is a short, pithy saying in widespread
use that expresses a basic truth or practical
wisdom.
Fortune favors the bold.
What does this mean?
Why do we transmit this information in this
form, rather than stating its literal meaning?
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Look before you leap.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
“Darkness may hide the trees
and the flowers from the eyes
but it cannot hide
love from the soul.”
-Khalil Gibran
Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran
What is the literal meaning of this poem? How
does the poem illustrate both shape and
substance, meaning and form?
Close Reading; or,
Reading in Slow Motion
Looking and listening with special alertness, slowly,
without rushing or feeling impatient if a work puzzles us at
first.
We’re so intrigued or moved by the words that we “slow
down” in our reading, lingering over verbal details and
vivid images.
We want to return to a poem, or to a key section of a story
or scene in a play, to articulate--“slow motion” style--where
its power over us lies.
Close or slow-motion reading can help you
understand and enjoy a work that at first seems
strange or obscure.
It’s examining a piece of literature with care
and intensity.
Remember Nabokov: The best temperament for a reader to
have, or to develop, is a combination of the artistic and the
scientific one.
If a would-be reader is utterly devoid of
passion and patience—of an artist’s passion
and a scientist’s patience—he will hardly enjoy
great literature.
Almost always, when we understand a work
better, we enjoy it more.
Explication
An explication moves from beginning to end
of a work, if the work is short, or a section of a
work, if the work is longer.
It is a sustained, meticulous, thorough,
systematic examination of the text.
It leads to greater understanding (and is the
foundation of your analysis of the text).
“One should notice and fondle details.”
-Vladimir Nabokov
Explication...
...means literally an unfolding or spreading out
...a line-by-line or episode-by-episode
commentary on what is going on in the text
...a commentary that reveals your sense of the
meaning of the work and its structure
We ask questions...
the implications of
metaphors and
images
the meanings of
words
what’s the speaker’s
tone of voice (as it
begins, develops,
changes)
how it’s organized to
prompt our response
how the work is put
together
how it begins
what happens next
...and so on, to the end.
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Musee de Beaux Arts
Suppose the first two lines read:
The old masters were never wrong about suffering.
They understood its human position well.
What (besides the rhymes) would change or be lost?
HW: Explicate the poem. Start at its beginning and work
through to the end, using the techniques discussed in class
and in your textbook.
One should notice and fondle details.
A good reader, a major reader, an
active and creative reader is a
rereader.
A book of fiction appeals first of all to the
mind.
The best temperament for a reader
to have, or to develop, is a
combination of the artistic and the
scientific one.
If a would-be reader is utterly
devoid of passion and patience—of
an artist’s passion and a scientist’s
patience—he will hardly enjoy great
literature.
A major writer combines these
three—storyteller, teacher,
enchanter—but it is the enchanter
in him that predominates and
makes him a major writer.
The three facets of the great
writer—magic, story,
lesson—are prone to blend
in one impression of
unified and unique
radiance.
It seems to me that a good formula
to test the quality of a novel is, in
the long run, a merging of the
precision of poetry and the
intuition of science.
Then with a pleasure which is both
sensual and intellectual we shall
watch the artist build his castle of
cards and watch the castle of cards
become a castle of beautiful steel
and glass.