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This is from one of my favourite novels, Alice. Written by Christina Henry, it is another reimagining of Alice in Wonderland which ties into The Bloody Chamber. It's dark and provocative.  It delves into themes of loss, and abandonment while also giving slight glimmers of hope.

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This mini series written by Mike Flanagan was inspired by the Turn of the Screw.  I found the dialogue and scenery to be quite beautiful.

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Why the Victorian mansion is a horror icon

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The Haunting of Hill House is another Mike Flanagan masterpiece, as you can see I have included 3 different works from him in this collage and really love his work. In the HoHH, the red room was considered to be the stomach of the house. It created safe havens catered to each of the family members, as the narrator of this video states, it gives them a slice of sanity while seemingly driving them insane. Red is often associated with blood, death, but it is one of the only bright colours throughout this show which I find interesting, or perhaps even foreshadowing the future for the Craines. Each member throughout is presented with a piece of red outside from the door, lukes sobriety cake at the end or the walls of his treehouse, the red chest in the toy room for Nell, the red bean bag chair in the game room etc. It created these spaces to make them feel secure, safe, while the evil (represented in the black mould) ate them alive. The imagery and symbolism shown throughout is quite beautiful.

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The Haunting Of Hill House: Ending Explained: How The House Won, The Red Room, Dudleys + More

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Midnight Mass is a series about trauma, and faith.  It centres around a small fishing town on an island, filled with devout Christians. Throughout the show, the priest, father Paul discusses his connection to the holy and his transition into immortality.  As the series progresses you catch glimpses of the "angel" but it isn't until the ending that you truly see it for what it is, not heavenly but evil. A vampire. It really carefully and brilliantly ties religion into this gothic presence.  Tying horror to religion is something I align myself with. Brilliant, brilliant series, I would venture to say one of my favourite shows of all time.

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The stark contrast between Erin and Riley's beliefs on death are truly beautiful. Wonderfully written, moving, dark, inspiring.

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Midnight Mass - What happens when we die

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This is one of the most beautifully tragic monologues I've ever heard.

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Unity of Effect - Why we should read Poe

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Unity of Effect - Why we should read Poe

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The prisoner strapped under a descending pendulum blade. A raven who refuses to leave the narrator’s chamber. A beating heart buried under the floorboards. Poe’s macabre and innovative stories of gothic horror have left a timeless mark on literature. But just what is it that makes Edgar Allan Poe one of the greatest American authors? Scott Peeples investigates. [TED-Ed Animation by Compote Collective].

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A History of the Gothic: Poe, Freud, and the Uncanny

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0:00 / 9:14•Watch full video

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What is FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM? What does FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM mean?

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Not gothic related, but couldn't leave this version of Jimmy out!

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I learned about this poem/song last semester in ENG 219. In terms of literally analysis I find it so fascinating.  I believe it follows the gothic theme in the sense of its tone.  The analogy of fruit being the bodies lynched, its moving and dark and just a really beautifully tragic poem I wanted to share. (Fun Fact: This year on American Idol, someone auditioned singing this)

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In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic confrontation that …

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Structuralism

A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, and influential in the 1950s and '60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of which are understandable only in relation to each other and to the system. In literary theory, structuralism challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of linguistic conventions and situated among other texts. Structuralist critics analyzed material by examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show how these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual works and the systems from which they emerged. The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was an important champion of structuralism, as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Frye's attempts to categorize Western literature by archetype had some basis in structuralist thought. Structuralism regarded language as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it had given way to poststructuralism.

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Structuralism A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, and influential in the 1950s and '60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of which are understandable only in relation to each other and to the system.

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Patricia Reese, Joseph Vigil

Patricia Reese
Patricia has taught composition, literature, and creative writing to both college and high school students. She holds a BA in English from Old Dominion University and is finishing her MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University.
View bio

Instructor Joseph Vigil
Joseph has a master's degree in literature as well as alternative teaching and ESL educator certifications. He has worked with middle school, high school, and college students in writing and language arts.
View bio

Learn about the deconstruction definition and the breakdown of the binary. Read about deconstruction in terms of literary theory and see examples in literature. Updated: 03/15/2022

Table of Contents

Deconstruction Definition

Deconstructing the Binary

Deconstruction in Literature

Deconstruction Examples

Lesson Summary

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Deconstruction Definition

What is deconstruction? The word "deconstruction" literally means to break something down into parts in order to better understand its meaning. In the philosophical context, deconstruction refers to the process of dismantling language to discover what is really being said beneath the surface; usually, this will be different from what is already considered to be known about the text. The deconstructionist examines not only what the text says but also what is doesn't say in order to ultimately conclude that no text has one fixed meaning and that if one can break down language enough, they will discover that it can mean anything to anyone. For example, consider the culinary industry. A recent trend in the food world is deconstructed dishes, or food that has been broken down into its most significant parts and served dismantled. Chefs who serve deconstructed dishes believe that by breaking down a popular dish into parts and serving it in an alternative way, they are reintroducing people to the dish and giving them an opportunity to experience it in a new way. This use of deconstruction is similar to the deconstruction definition as applied to literature.

A deconstructed taco, served on a plate with shells and filling mixed together instead of served traditionally.

Deconstructionism argues that logical structures based on binaries, or binary pairs, are the bones of society and language. A binary consists of two concepts that are presented as being at odds with each other. Examples include life/death, mind/body, and masculine/feminine. However, in analyzing these binaries, deconstructionists have found that the line separating these opposing terms actually connects them, making them interdependent. Life means nothing without the contrasting concept of death to compare it to, for example. So, when practicing deconstruction, one is trying to understand a term or concept by looking to what it is not. To understand life, one must study death. The goal of deconstruction is to become aware of the binary pairs that comprise our thinking and relationships and recognize their instability in relation to one another.

Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction

Jacques Derrida is the founder of deconstruction. His goal was to disrupt metaphysical thought built upon binary oppositions. A key aspect of Derrida's thinking is his concept of differ'ance, a play on the French verb "differer" which means both "to defer" and "to differ." In practice, this means that words are incomplete in meaning unless supported by other chosen words, and that the goal of specificity in language is to differentiate meaning. For example, if someone said the word "flower" to a room full of people, it is likely that every person in the room would conjure a picture of a different flower in their minds. If the speaker clarified by saying "single red rose" then the audience would be more united on their understanding of the concept being presented. Furthermore, in using more specific language, the speaker is causing the audience's original understanding "to differ" from the speaker's intended meaning, their new understanding is clarified by more specific language. However, even with more specific descriptors, it is unlikely that that every person in the room thought of the exact same rose. According to Derrida, all interpretations of language are valid, but this also means that nobody can ever understand exactly what another person is speaking or writing about. Language is only an approximation of what we know, but true definitions of terms are unattainable because it is all relative to individual experience. As in the example with the rose, we tend to describe things by what they are not.

This connects directly to Derrida's theory of deconstruction and the concept of the binary. To deconstruct is to bypass all preconceived notions of the binary oppositions underlaying our understanding of society and language, and to not treat concepts as if some were different from others. This becomes possible with differ'ance, because society is built on the understanding that we do know some things to be true, such as that life is the opposite of death, but Derrida's theory disrupts all of that by pointing out that we don't even have complete definitions of the words we use, and that these binary pairs aren't actually so opposite. This becomes especially relevant when breaking down a literary text.

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Deconstructing the Binary

In deconstructionism, a binary consists of two terms that are assumed to hold opposite meanings. Deconstruction aims to disrupt the binary pairs that make up society by showing how the line that separates two presumed opposite terms actually connects them. For example, think of oil and water. When mixed, the oil rises to the top and the water coalesces beneath it, leaving a clear point of separation visible by a distinct line. That line touches both the oil and the water, making it part of both. Thus, are the oil and water truly separated?

Sexuality is a great example of deconstruction actively at work in society. The binary pair often discussed in this context is heterosexual/homosexual, heterosexuality being considered the polar opposite of homosexual. To deconstruct this binary, the deconstructionist would point to the varying degrees of bisexuality among people and the existence of non-binary persons (which also destabilizes the gender binary) to argue that sexuality is a broad spectrum. As our understanding of gender and sexuality have evolved, those binaries become less stable, with less and less people relying on them for security in their identity or role in society.

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What is an example of deconstruction in literature?

An example of deconstruction in literature would be reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower, noticing the conventional/marginal binary at work, and then using textual evidence to dismantle that binary in the context of the story. For example, the deconstructionist might argue that the joy/sorrow binary in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is undermined by the text because Charlie's joy puts him on the path to sorrow, making the relationship between the two supposed opposite terms interdependent.

What is the theory of deconstruction?

Deconstruction theory aims to dismantle the binaries underlaying the framework of society and language in order to show that these binaries are unstable. We can expand this definition further through Derrida's concept of differ'ance, which assumes that all meaning is eternally deferred because meaning is relational.

What is an example of deconstruction?

An example of deconstruction is the way the sexuality binary, homosexuality/heterosexuality, is being actively dismantled in modern society. The deconstructionist can point to bisexuality and non-binary people in their argument that this binary is unstable.

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Definition and Origins of New Criticism

How would you want people to judge you - based off what they've previously heard about you, or your words and actions as you interact with them? Most people would want to be judged off their own words and actions. Even though our histories and reputations are important, there's a reason why we hear again and again not to 'judge a book by its cover.'

According to New Criticism, we should judge books the same way. Rather than worrying about the author's background or our own reactions to a book, we should evaluate work based only on the text itself. Since we're only dealing with the text, we'd be doing what's called a close reading, which requires taking apart a text and looking at its individual elements, such as theme, setting, plot, and structure, for example.

Prior to the 1920s, literary criticism took a largely historical slant. To understand a text, critics often looked to its historical background and the history of the language used in the text. But in 1929, a literary critic at Cambridge by the name of Ivor Armstrong Richards published Practical Criticism. His book reported on an experiment that involved people reading and responding to poems without knowing who the authors were. Richards was interested in why people responded to these poems the way they did.

In 1939, Richards began teaching at Harvard and influenced a new American literary theory. Two years later, John Crowe Ransom, an English professor at Kenyon College, published New Criticism. The new book's title was applied to this young method of examining texts. New Criticism went on to become a popular method of literary analysis throughout the middle of the 20th century.

What Exactly Do New Critics Do?

In focusing on the text itself, New Critics intentionally ignore the author and the reader.

According to intentional fallacy, it's impossible to determine an author's reasons for writing a text without directly asking him or her. And even if we did determine the author's intentions, they don't matter, because the text itself carries its own value. So, even if we're reading a book by a renowned author like Shakespeare, we shouldn't let the author's reputation taint our evaluation of the text.

Similarly, affective fallacy claims that we shouldn't waste time thinking about the effect a text may have on the reader, because then we're polluting the text with our own personal baggage. So, we should ignore how 'beautiful' a poem may be or our reactions to an emotional novel such as Where the Red Fern Grows. If we give in to our emotional reactions, we're less able to evaluate the text objectively.

Besides authors and readers, New Critics would also argue that a text's historical and cultural contexts are also irrelevant. For example, even if we're looking at such a culturally significant text, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, we should avoid the temptation to read it as an anti-slavery novel. Instead, we should read it to see how the novel's elements, such as its setting and theme, work together to produce a unified, whole text.

Green Eggs and Ham and New Criticism

Let's take Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham as an example and evaluate it as New Critics. Although it may be a bit silly, it's a good place to start.

The story revolves around the conflict between an unnamed protagonist and Sam. The plot occurs in two main acts. In the first act, Sam tries to convince the protagonist to eat green eggs and ham in a variety of circumstances, despite the protagonist's constant refusal. In the second act, the protagonist declares his love of green eggs and ham and says he would eat them in any and all of the circumstances Sam has previously proposed.

The first act takes up the majority of the book. It's not until almost the book's end that the protagonist finally tries green eggs and ham and discovers that he likes them. The book, therefore, is mainly a story of pursuit and persuasion.

Sam's stanzas are shorter than the protagonists. The difference in the length of their speech emphasizes the protagonist's refusal to try something new and makes Sam almost a fleeting, mysterious character.

While the stanzas are of different lengths, the rhyme scheme also changes often. For example, the protagonist's early lines in the book follow an 'abab' rhyme scheme, but he later switches to 'aabb.' So, Dr. Seuss uses rhyme schemes for variety rather than to differentiate the two characters.

New Criticism would disregard what the story's moral may be or that it may have been written to encourage children to try new things. New Critics would also avoid comparing Green Eggs and Ham to any of Dr. Seuss's other books. Such intertextual examinations would take away from our examination of this text.

Romeo and Juliet and New Criticism

Now that we've gotten our feet wet, let's look at a selection from a more grown-up text. Who hasn't heard lines from Romeo and Juliet's famous balcony scene?

Juliet:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo:

Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet:

Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet...

If we took a New Critic's look at this passage, the first element we'd probably notice would be its verse form. Although it doesn't follow a simple rhyme scheme, the majority of its lines are in iambic pentameter, meaning they contain ten syllables of alternating stresses. This structure gives the text a natural rhythm, which makes sense since Romeo and Juliet is meant to be performed.

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new criticism in literature: definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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New Criticism in Literature: Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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How would you want people to judge you - based off what they've previously heard about you, or your words and actions as you interact with them? Most people would want to be judged off their own words and actions.

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From my research this is the inspiration for Angela Carter's short story.

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" Erlkönig" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking, a king of the fairies. It was originally written by Goethe as part of a 1782 Singspiel, Die Fischerin.

"Erlkönig" has been called Goethe's "most famous ballad". The poem has been set to music by several composers, most notably by Franz Schubert.

An anxious young boy is being carried at night by his father on horseback. To where is not spelled out; German Hof has a rather broad meaning of "yard", "courtyard", "farm", or (royal) "court". The opening line tells that the time is unusually late and the weather unusually inclement for travel. As it becomes apparent that the boy is delirious, a possibility is that the father is rushing him to medical aid.

As the poem unfolds, the son claims to see and hear the "Erlkönig" (Erl-King). His father claims to not see or hear the creature, and he attempts to comfort his son, asserting natural explanations for what the child sees - a wisp of fog, rustling leaves, shimmering willows.

The Erl-King attempts to lure the child into joining him, promising amusement, rich clothes and the attentions of his daughters. Finally, the Erl-King declares that he will take the child by force. The boy shrieks that he has been attacked, spurring the father to ride faster to the Hof. Upon reaching the destination, the child is already dead.

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? -
Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron' und Schweif? -
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. -

"Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel' ich mit dir;
Manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand." -

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? -
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind. -

"Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein." -

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? -
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh' es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. -

"Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch' ich Gewalt." -
Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! -

Dem Vater grauset's; er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;
In seinen Armen, das Kind war tot.

Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He has the boy well in his arm,
He holds him safely, he keeps him warm.

My son, why do you hide your face in fear? -
Father, do you not see the Erl-King?
The Erl-King with crown and cape? -
My son, it is a streak of fog. -

"You dear child, come, go with me!
(Very) beautiful games, I play with you;
Many colourful flowers are on the beach,
My mother has many a golden robe." -

My father, my father, and do you not hear
What the Erl-King quietly promises me? -
Be calm, stay calm, my child;
Through dry leaves, the wind is sighing. -

"Do you, fine boy, want to go with me?
My daughters shall wait on you finely;
My daughters lead the nightly dance,
And rock and dance and sing to bring you in." -

My father, my father, and don't you see there
The Erl-King's daughters in the gloomy place? -
My son, my son, I see it clearly:
There shimmer the old willows so grey. -

"I love you, your beautiful form excites me;
And if you're not willing, then I will use force." -
My father, my father, he's touching me now!
The Erl-King has done me harm! -

It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on,
He holds the moaning child in his arms,
Reaches the farm with great difficulty;
In his arms, the child was dead.

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide? -
Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train? -
My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain. -

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
For many a game, I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold." -

My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear? -
Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves. -

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep." -

My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me? -
My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight. -

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ." -
My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
For sorely, the Erl-King has hurt me at last. -

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread, -
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

The story of the Erlkönig derives from the traditional Danish ballad : Goethe's poem was inspired by Johann Gottfried Herder's translation of a variant of the ballad ( Danmarks gamle Folkeviser 47B, from Peter Syv's 1695 edition) into German as Erlkönigs Tochter ("The Erl-King's Daughter") in his collection of folk songs, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (published 1778). Goethe's poem then took on a life of its own, inspiring the Romantic concept of the Erlking. Niels Gade's cantata Elverskud, Op. 30 (1854, text by Chr. K. F. Molbech) was published in translation as Erlkönigs Tochter.

The Erlkönig's nature has been the subject of some debate. The name translates literally from the German as " Alder King" rather than its common English translation, " Elf King" (which would be rendered as Elfenkönig in German). It has often been suggested that Erlkönig is a mistranslation from the original Danish elverkonge, which does mean "king of the elves". [citation needed ] In the original Scandinavian version of the tale, the antagonist was the Erlkönig's daughter rather than the Erlkönig himself.

The poem has often been set to music, with Franz Schubert's rendition, his Opus 1 (D. 328), being the best known. Probably the next best known is that of Carl Loewe (1818). Other notable settings are by members of Goethe's circle, including the actress Corona Schröter (1782), Andreas Romberg (1793), Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1794) and Carl Friedrich Zelter (1797). Ludwig van Beethoven attempted to set it to music but abandoned the effort; his sketch however was full enough to be published in a completion by Reinhold Becker (1897). A few other 19th-century versions are those by Václav Tomášek (1815) and Louis Spohr (1856, with obbligato violin) and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (Polyphonic Studies for Solo Violin), though his was essentially a transcription of Schubert's version for solo violin. Twenty-first-century examples are the pianist Marc-André Hamelin's "Etude No. 8 (after Goethe)" for solo piano, based on "Erlkönig".

Franz Schubert composition

Franz Schubert composed his Lied "Erlkönig" for solo voice and piano at the age of 17 or 18 in 1815, setting text from Goethe's poem. The work was first performed in concert on 1 December 1820 at a private gathering in Vienna. The public premiere on 7 March 1821 at the Theater am Kärntnertor was a great success, and he quickly rose to fame among the composers in Vienna. It is one of Schubert's most famous works, with enduring popularity and acclaim since its premiere in 1821.

Carl Loewe composition

Carl Loewe's setting was published as Op. 1, No. 3 and composed in 1817-18, in the lifetime of the poem's author and also of Schubert, whose version Loewe did not then know. Collected with it were Op. 1, No. 1, "Edward" (1818; a translation of the Scottish ballad), and No. 2, "Der Wirthin Töchterlein " (1823; "The Innkeeper's Daughter"), a poem of Ludwig Uhland. Inspired by a German translation of Scottish border ballads, Loewe set several poems with an elvish theme; but although all three of Op. 1 are concerned with untimely death, in this set only the "Erlkönig" has the supernatural element.

Loewe's accompaniment is in semiquaver groups of six in time and marked Geschwind (fast). The vocal line evokes the galloping effect by repeated figures of crotchet and quaver, or sometimes three quavers, overlying the binary tremolo of the semiquavers in the piano. In addition to an unusual sense of motion, this creates a flexible template for the stresses in the words to fall correctly within the rhythmic structure.

Loewe's version is less melodic than Schubert's, with an insistent, repetitive harmonic structure between the opening minor key and answering phrases in the major key of the dominant, which have a stark quality owing to their unusual relationship to the home key. The narrator's phrases are echoed by the voices of father and son, the father taking up the deeper, rising phrase, and the son a lightly undulating, answering theme around the dominant fifth. These two themes also evoke the rising and moaning of the wind.[citation needed ]

The Erl-King, who is always heard pianissimo, does not sing melodies, but instead delivers insubstantial rising arpeggios that outline a single major chord (that of the home key) which sounds simultaneously on the piano in tremolo. Only with his final threatening word, "Gewalt", does he depart from this chord. Loewe's implication is that the Erlking has no substance but merely exists in the child's feverish imagination. As the piece progresses, the first in the groups of three quavers is dotted to create a breathless pace, which then forms a bass figure in the piano driving through to the final crisis. The last words, war tot, leap from the lower dominant to the sharpened third of the home key; this time not to the major but to a diminished chord, which settles chromatically through the home key in the major and then to the minor.

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" Erlkönig" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking, a king of the fairies. It was originally written by Goethe as part of a 1782 Singspiel, Die Fischerin. "Erlkönig" has been called Goethe's "most famous ballad".

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James Franco reading Howl by Allen Ginsberg - 2

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No copyright infringement intended. The copyright for the movie Howl belongs to Werc Werk Works.

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I really enjoyed this poem and felt it fell in line with the theme of the gothic.

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Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath | Poetry Foundation

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This probably one of my favourite stories, I think Shirley Jackson was a wonderful writer. This particular story follows a lot of the requirements of the gothic theme. The audiobook version makes it that much more dark with how it's read.

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The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson   Full Audiobook with captions

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This is a general introduction to close reading, and a specific set of principles and terms for my own students.

This guide to close reading is a subset of my broader guide to Effective Critical Writing. ( It is indebted to similar guides by Robert Matz and John Lye, and to The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 5th edition, ed. J.A. Cuddon and revised by M. A. R. Habib [print]).

Feel free to share this guide, and to adapt it to your own needs - so long as you share what you write under the same creative-commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) that I adopt here.

Here are some useful resources:

What is Close Reading?

Close reading is a practice, a habit of reading texts slowly enough to notice their details. It considers the functions of a text's verbal parts, and asks why the author has chosen them rather than others: its form; its speaker (voice, tone); its argument; its structure; its setting or context; its imagery; its sound and rhythm; its language (syntax, diction, and word meanings); and its rhetorical schemes and tropes (especially metaphors, similes, and symbols).

See it in action

My video (" Turn Ideas into Arguments") takes you through the four stages of annotating texts (for six features); thinking about your notes; filtering your thoughts; and summarizing your arguments. It uses the example of a Dylan Thomas poem, " In my craft or sullen art ".

Why do it?

If you're reading this, presumably someone like me has assigned you the task of close-reading a text. But why? What's the rationale behind these assignments?

Close reading is an essential skill for literary criticism because it studies the building-blocks of meaning, the words that we interpret whenever we make claims about texts. It focuses on the evidence that separates valid claims from invalid ones.

You do it because literary criticism is like palaeontology. You can't build a dinosaur skeleton until you've spent many hours in the field, excavating and dusting fragments of bone. Similarly, you can't make an argument about a text until you've closely examined its parts.

Is it objective?

No. There's no such thing. Nor is there a checklist of things in a text that you must notice in order to 'do it right.' A text is not a box that its author packed full of hidden treasures that you need to unpack. It's a collection of words that either do or don't have significance.

The first time you do a close reading it'll be hard to recognize or describe all those significant moments. But as you learn terms, and as you practice recognizing their formulations and variety, it gets easier - because you get better at it.

Good close readings have only one thing in common: they make rigorous evidence-based claims. Close reading is always based on evidence, and the evidence is always the same - so while there will be commonalities among close readings, most texts are rich enough that two readings will differ. What's more, a reading you do today will differ from one you do tomorrow, because you'll notice different things tomorrow.

Is it over-analysis?

William Wordsworth, whose very poetry you may be close reading for this assignment, thought it could be. "Our meddling intellect | Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things," he warned.

So yes, there is such a thing as reading too much into things. But close reading should generate a flurry of ideas and details, which you then sift and filter to decide if they're valid. You decide whether features seem accidental or deliberate. For instance, if you note that every 17th syllable of a poem uses the letter "w," say, that's probably less valid to note than a poem's recurrent use of nautical terms.

What should I look for?

At least six components of texts are worth noting when you do a close reading. They are:

1. Form: the text's external shape, including (for verse) its line length and rhyme scheme.

2. Structure and argument: the internal progression or cumulative development of the text's meaning.

3. Speaker's voice and tone: the qualities of and changes in tone, as it expresses emotions or states of mind.

4. Sound and rhythm: the length of words, and their arrangement; also any repeated consonants or vowel-sounds ("alliteration").

But that's just the beginning. The 35 terms below, divided into four categories, name different elements of a text that close readings can describe. Some terms, like diction or syntax, are in every text you read. Others, like metaphor or allegory, are only in some texts. Your task is to recognize them where they occur.

Okay, so how do I do it?

Step 1: Paraphrase

Read the passage and carefully paraphrase its meaning in modern or ordinary language. Split it up into parts. Try to understand how it's organized, and what gives it this structure. Does the argument of the passage ever contradict itself?

Step 2: Reflect

Write your questions, ideas, and issues in the margins of your book. Think about how the different parts of the passage are working together. Think about how words from one part reflect words from another.

Step 3: Use a dictionary

What words do you not know? Which seem to be used in unexpected ways? Do some words seem to have more than one meaning? Identify at least two words that seem archaic in usage and meaning. Look them up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which tells you how a word's meanings have changed through time. How do these different meanings change your paraphrase?

Step 4: Reread

A close reading requires many readings of the same passage. It's often a good idea, in fact, to do an intensive close reading of a passage one day, and then come back to it again with a new look on a different day. Are any key words or phrases repeated? Do they change in meaning or connotation from one instance to another?

Dos and Don'ts

DO give your close reading a structure, with paragraphs that each have a beginning, middle, and end. Move from broad to narrow features, or general to particular. It can help to move sequentially through the passage - but:

DON'T retell the story, or paraphrase the text in your own words without doing analysis of it. Assume that your reader is familiar with the text or passage.

DON'T toss all your ideas into a blender and pour them onto the page. All you'll get is mushy prose, gathering ideas without order.

DO follow the guidelines for clear, precise, and natural language that are the hallmarks of all good writing.

DON'T quote long passages. Single out words in phrases that are typically no longer than 5-6 words.

Can I see some examples?

Sure. These are all from Shakespeare, and were originally compiled by Sarah Hertz (in 2011). Many of the examples come from As You Like It, only because that was the play we were teaching at the time. Sarah used standard reference works like The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory; and some specific ones like Reading Shakespeare's Dramatic Language (Arden).

Four categories

In this list, I group literary terms into four categories, which you can think of as different levels of close reading. Each of these is defined at the beginning of each section below:

1 / Linguistic Terms

These are terms that address language on the surface level, as they appear and are arranged in sequence. They cover vocabulary, grammar, word choice and order, and figures of speech.

alliteration

❧ (From the Latin 'repeating and playing upon the same letter.') A figure of speech in which consonants are repeated. They are often at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables.

Two examples from As You Like It:

That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to b etray a she-lamb... (Touchstone, 3.2.75-78)

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running b rooks,

Sermons in s tones, and good in everything. (Duke Senior, 2.1.16-17)

Alliteration is a very old device in English verse - much older than rhyme - and is common in verse generally. It is also used occasionally in prose.

antithesis

❧ (From the Greek 'opposition.') A rhetorical figure in which two ideas are directly opposed. Think of antithesis as tension plus parallelism ( both defined above): opposing ideas presented in a grammatically parallel way.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ( As You Like It, 5.1.31-32)

For happy wife, a most distressed widow;

For joyful mother, one that wails the name;

For queen, a very caitiff, crown'd with care;

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;

For one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me. ( Richard III, 4.4.98-102)

assonance

❧ The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighbouring words. It is distinct from rhyme in that the final consonants differ although the vowels or diphthongs match: sw eet dr eams, h it or m i ss.

How is assonance different from alliteration? Alliteration refers to repeated consonants, and assonance to repeated vowels. They often occur in proximity to each other.

This example, by John Addington Symonds, combines assonance with alliteration:

[T]he breathing fires

Of heaven in everlasting e ndless gyres

Enfolding and e ncircling orbs of thought. (from The Sonnet)

diction

❧ (1) Narrowly defined, a speaker's (or author's) word choice.

❧ (2) More broadly defined, the general type or character of language used in speech or in a work of literature.

In the second, broader sense, diction is typically divided into two components: vocabulary and syntax ( defined below). Vocabulary encompasses the degree of difficulty, complexity, abstractness, formality, and currency of words used, as well as their etymology or origin (native or foreign, Latinate or Germanic, and so on).

Poetic diction refers specifically to the choice and phrasing of words suitable for poetry.

dissonance

❧ Harshness of sound and/or rhythm, either inadvertent or deliberate. The term is nearly equivalent to cacophony, but tends to denote a lack of harmony between sounds rather than the harshness of a particular sound in isolation.

Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined. (First and Second Witch, Macbeth, 4.1.1-2)

euphony

❧ (From the Greek 'sweetness of sound.') A pleasing smoothness of sound, perceived by the ease with which the words can be spoken in combination. The pleasurable impression achieved may be due as much or more to the images evoked as to any inherent musicality in the sounds; calling a passage euphonious thus necessarily involves a subjective judgement. Euphony is the opposite of cacophony, or discordant sounds.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee

The more I have, for both are infinite. ( Romeo & Juliet , 2.1.175-77)

interruption

❧ The sudden breaking off of an utterance before it is completed, usually in moments of emotion. It seems quite a colloquial and natural feature in speech, but in earlier literature and drama it would be rare. Consider Hamlet's emotional response to his mother's remarriage:

Heaven and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-

Let me not think on't. Frailty, thy name is woman! (1.2.142-46)

onomatopoeia

❧ (From the Greek for 'name-making.') Wording that seems to signify meaning through sound effects. Onomatopoeic words, such as hiss and sizzle, ostensibly imitate the sounds they represent; onomatopoeic passages more broadly suggest an association between sound and meaning.

At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; ( As You Like It, 2.7)

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o'er the green corn-field did pass

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:

Sweet lovers love the spring. ( As You Like It, 5.3.16-21)

parallelism

❧ The arrangement of similarly constructed clauses, sentences, or verse lines in a pairing or other sequence suggesting some correspondence between them.

...no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy... ( As You Like It, 5.2.31-35)

The effect of parallelism is usually a balanced arrangement that repeats the same syntax. When the elements arranged in parallel are in tension with each other, the result is often antithesis ( defined below).

In a more extended sense, parallelism can also means correspondences between a text's larger elements, such as the relation of subplot to main plot.

syntax

❧ The ways in which words and clauses are ordered and connected to form sentences; or the set of grammatical rules governing such word-order. Syntax also refers to the arrangement - the ordering, grouping, and placement - of words within any phrase, clause or sentence.

Syntax is a prime determinant of literary style, and a key difference between poetic language and so-called ordinary language. While English sentences usually have the structure 'subject-verb-object' (e.g. "Romeo killed Tybalt"), poets often distort this syntax through inversion, while even prose writers can use elaborate syntax.

tension

❧ Generally, the balance or equilibrium between opposing elements in a literary work, especially a poem, that provoke our interest in its outcome. Tensions could include: good/evil; nature/culture; or feminine/masculine. Tension is essential to conflicts or binary oppositions like abstract/concrete, general/particular, and structure/texture. In Tension in Poetry (1938), Allen Tate defines tension as the relationship between two types of meaning: "extension" (concrete, denotative meaning) and "intention" (abstract, metaphorical meaning).

Dramatic tension and inner struggle are central to the plot in Hamlet:

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right! (1.5.189-90)

zeugma

❧ (From the Greek for 'yoking together.') The use of one word - usually a verb - that governs or refers to two or more other words in the same clause or sentence. You can recognize a zeugma by the absence of words that, in ordinary discourse, you would expect to (re)appear.

Bold verbs are zeugmatic in these two examples:

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things. (William Wordsworth, "Lucy")

Her beauty pierced mine eye, her speech mine woeful heart,

Her presence all the powers of my discourse. (George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie)

2 / Semantic Terms

These are terms that involve the meanings and the ideas that are associated with words.

connotation

❧ The suggestion or implication of a word or phrase, beyond its denotation or literal meaning. A good example is the difference between 'house' and 'home': a 'house' is a physical structure, more or less; whereas the connotative meaning of 'home' relates to the close relationships among its inhabitants. Authors choose words with connotations that raise their desired emotional and cultural associations.

denotation

❧ The literal meaning of a word or phrase. When reading recent or contemporary texts, you'll know the meaning of most words and only look up specialized vocabulary (e.g 'moorish' or 'espoused') - although if you look up words you think you understand, you often find secondary meanings you didn't know about.

But in historical texts (i.e. written 5 or more decades ago), you'll encounter words whose meanings have shifted over time (e.g. 'rude' or 'naked'), and words that are no longer in use (e.g. 'hies' or 'livery'). That's when you need the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which gives you the historical denotations of words.

The other category of difficult words is idioms, or idiomatic expressions. These are ways of using words to convey more than their literal or grammatical meaning, and they are particular to time and place. Consider the many different ways of answering "thank you": "no problem," "you're welcome," "sure thing," "no worries," "don't mention it," "je vous en prie." Each is particular to the customs of its culture, language, nationality, and time; and none means its literal meaning. Someday our own expressions will be surpassed by new expressions, and we'll sound a tad ancient ourselves. (God forfend!)

Often when you see an idiom in a historical text, though, you don't recognize it because we don't use it in everyday speech: "in my mind's eye," "in the main," "laugh to scorn," "thick and fast," "the quick and the dead." The only way to recognize and translate these into their modern-English equivalents is to read a lot of historical texts, to stay curious about their idioms, and to look up the ones that seem unfamiliar in - where else? - the OED.

double entendre

❧ French for 'double meaning', adopted in English to denote a pun in which a word or phrase has a second, usually sexual, meaning, as in Elizabethan uses of the verb 'lie' referring both to death and to orgasm.

Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie with his mother earth? ( As You Like It, 1.2.191-92)

"Lie" = "to fall to the ground." Echoing biblical descriptions of the body's return to the earth at death and punning on "lie with" as slang for "have sexual relations with."

metaphor

❧ (From the Greek 'carrying from one place to another.') A figure of speech in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.

The use of metaphor to combine ideas is a major feature of poetry, although it is quite possible to write poems without metaphors.

In As You Like It, Orlando compares trees to books, and tree bark to pages of the books:

O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character. (3.2.5-6)

Metaphors are more compressed versions of similes, and are sometimes more complex for us to understand. Much of our everyday language is also made up of metaphorical words and phrases that pass unnoticed as 'dead' metaphors, like the branch of an organization or the leg of a table. But Shakespeare often takes common, conventional, or 'dead' metaphors and gives them a new twist or elaboration. So Hamlet thinks about the implication of the common image of death as sleep:

To die-to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ...

Must give us pause. ( Hamlet, 3.1.64-68)

A mixed metaphor is one in which the combination of qualities suggested is illogical or ridiculous, usually as a result of trying to apply two metaphors to one thing.

paradox

❧ (From the Greek 'beside/beyond opinion.') Originally a paradox was merely a view that contradicted accepted opinion. By about the middle of the 16th century, the word had acquired its now-commonly accepted meaning: an apparently self-contradictory, even absurd statement which, on closer inspection, is found to contain a truth reconciling the conflicting opposites. Two examples from As You Like It:

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind. (Touchstone, 3.2.106)

I do desire we may be better strangers. (Orlando, 3.2.251)

Some paradoxes cannot be resolved into truths, remaining flatly self-contradictory, e.g. "Everything I say is a lie."

A paradox formed by the juxtaposition of two opposite or contradictory words (rather than by a complete statement) is an oxymoron. Consider Romeo's lament in Romeo and Juliet, a long series of oxymorons:

O brawling love! O loving hate! ...

O any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! (1.1.176-81)

personification

❧ A figure of speech or trope, like metaphor, by which animals, abstract ideas, or inanimate things are referred to as if they were human, as in Sir Philip Sidney's line: "Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows."

In drama, the term is sometimes applied to the impersonation of non-human things and ideas by human actors.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal. ( As You Like It, 3.2.299-302)

Personification, known in Greek as prosopopoeia, is common in everyday speech: e.g. "time flies" or "chair legs." It is common in most ages of poetry, particularly in the 18th century. It has a special function as the basis of allegory.

A pathetic fallacy is a limited form of personification, in which human traits and emotions are attributed to inanimate nature: "the sea was angry that day." Compared to personification in general, the pathetic fallacy is narrower in scope, since it applies only to nature rather than anything non-human, and its 'humanizing' characterization is typically less sustained.

pun

❧ A figure of speech which involves a play-on-words exploiting a similarity in spelling and/or pronunciation between words with different meanings. Alternatively, a pun may employ one word that has multiple meanings.

One of the earliest types of wordplay, the pun is a fairly universal form of humour. Puns are often intended humorously, but not always.

A pun form known as asteismus involves a reply to earlier words used in a different sense. This example occurs in Cymbeline(II, i):

CLOTEN: Would he had been one of my rank!

LORD: To have smell'd like a fool.

Rosalind uses the same joke with Touchstone in As You Like It (1.2). Touchstone is a wellspring of puns:

For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you. Yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you, for I think you have no money in your purse. (2.4.10-12)

Whereas Hamlet is not quite so funny:

A little more than kin and less than kind. ( Hamlet, 1.2.65)

repetition

❧ An essential unifying element in nearly all poetry and much prose. It may consist of sounds, particular syllables and words, phrases, stanzas, metrical patterns, ideas, allusions and shapes. Thus refrain, assonance, rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration and onomatopoeia are frequent in repetition. One example from As You Like It is in the definition of 'line length' below; this is the other:

O, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hooping! (Celia, 3.2.186-88)

simile

❧ A figure of speech (more specifically a trope) that compares two distinct things by using words such as like or as to link them together. Simile is distinguished from metaphor, another trope that associates two distinct things, but without the use of a connective word. To say "That child is like a cyclone" is to use a simile, whereas to say "That child is a cyclone" is to use a metaphor. In either case, the cyclone is the vehicle, the image used to represent the child, which is the tenor, or subject of the figure.

Two examples from As You Like It:

I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs. (Jaques, 2.5.10-11)

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. (Jaques, 2.7.146-48)

An epic, or Homeric, simile is an extended and elaborate simile in which the vehicle is described at such length that it nearly obscures the tenor.

3 / Structural Terms

These terms involve relationships between a text's form and its themes or ideas.

caesura

❧ A break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated by the natural rhythm of the language and/or enforced by punctuation. A line may have more than one caesura, or none at all. If near the beginning of the line, it is called the initial caesura; near the middle, medial; near the end, terminal. The commonest is the medial.

To be, or not to be: that is the question: ( Hamlet, 3.1.58)

enjambment

❧ (French for 'striding over.') A sentence or statement that spans more than one verse line. Lines exhibiting enjambment do not end with grammatical breaks, and their sense is incomplete without the following line(s). Such lines are sometimes called run-on lines to distinguish them from end-stopped lines. The meaning of an end-stopped line, in which a grammatical pause marked by punctuation and the physical end of the line coincide, is complete in itself. The following lines, from The Winter's Tale, are enjambed:

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex

Commonly are; the want of which vain dew

Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have

That honourable grief lodged here which burns

Worse than tears drown. (Hermione, 2.1.110-14)

Whereas, in contrast, these lines from Romeo & Juliet are all end-stopped:

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.

The sun for sorrow will not show his head.

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished. (Prince, 5.3.304-07)

line length

❧ The number of syllables -- not words -- in a line of poetry. In Shakespeare's verse the convention is ten syllables per line, but different passages (e.g. songs) will have shorter or longer lines. When one or more lines are significantly different in length to those around it/them, Shakespeare is often suggesting something about the meaning of the line(s), or the character speaking them.

If thou rememberest not the slightest folly

That ever love did make thee run into,

Thou hast not loved;

Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,

Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,

Thou hast not loved;

Or if thou hast not broke from company

Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,

Thou hast not loved. ( As You Like It, 2.4)

rhyme

❧ The formalized consonance of syllables, represented in an abstract notation or 'scheme': e.g. AA, BB, CC for couplets. Blank verse has no rhyme scheme; that is the meaning of 'blank.'

Master, go on; and I will follow thee

To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.

From seventeen years till now almost four-score

Here lived I, but now live here no more.

At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,

But at fourscore it is too late a week;

Yet fortune cannot recompense me better

Than to die well and not my master's debtor. ( As You Like It, 2.3)

stanza

❧ A group of lines in poetry, set off by whitespace before and after. As the units into which poets divide poems, stanzas are similar to paragraphs in prose - but different insofar as they are usually of a uniform length, typically between 4 and 12 lines. Poets may repeat words, lines (as refrains), and more often rhyme schemes between stanzas (e.g. ABABBCC).

Sonnets are occasionally divided into two or more stanzas denoting their rhyme scheme (e.g. octave and sestet, quatrains and couplet).

structure & distinct phases

❧ These non-technical terms refer to the progression of the text's meaning, or the stages through which a text moves. Where are its shifts of subject, mood, story, theme, tone, verb tenses? Is there a beginning, middle, and end to what the text describes or recounts? Where do those transitions happen?

For shorter texts like lyrical poems, consider sentences or clauses and their relationships. Does one contradict or reply to another? Is the poem split into stanzas? How might you group some stanzas together, and divide them from others? Don't look at layout alone, but how it relates to what's happening at each stage.

For longer texts like stories, plays, and narrative poems, look for internal divisions (e.g. chapters, scenes, acts). But look also within those divisions, to pivotal moments (e.g. revelations or discoveries) that shift the story. Structure also obtains in non-fictional prose. If the text is an argument, for example, does it make a claim at the beginning and then back it up with evidence? Or use evidence/examples to establish a claim?

title & epigraphs

❧ A text's title might be useful when you are interpreting its meaning, only if you're sure that it hasn't been added or changed by someone other than the author, like a modern editor. (For instance, many of the titles of Shakespeare's plays are abbreviated versions of the titles under which they were first performed or printed.) Poems published in the past few centuries have titles provided either by the author or by their acquaintances and publishers, so you need to be certain which category your title is in before you make too much of it.

Poem titles can be illuminating when they address features that direct and frame your interpretation - as in the case of William Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence," originally known by the more descriptive title "The Leech Gatherer.""

Epigraphs are short quotations that precede texts; they often represent ideas that inspired or otherwise influenced the text. Normally in a close reading you investigate an epigraph's source and briefly address its influence alongside other sources or contexts.

Novels or plays often print epigraphs on separate pages like title pages, or they appear at divisions like chapter-breaks. Poems print them just before the first line.

4 / Cultural Terms

These terms relate to a text's connections with things outside of its boundaries, like references to places or to other texts, mythology, or other external elements. To identify them, you need to recognize and understand such externalities.

allegory

❧ (From the Greek allēgoria, 'speaking otherwise.') A story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning.

The principal technique of allegory is personification, whereby abstract qualities are given human shape - as in public statues of Liberty or Justice.

In written narrative, allegory involves a sustained, continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale.

An allegory may be conceived as a metaphor that is extended into a structured system. Many critics consider the allegory to be an extended metaphor and, conversely, consider metaphors - which involve saying one thing but meaning another - to be ' verbal allegories'. Famous examples are John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Milton's Paradise Lost.

In As You Like It, Oliver tells the story of his rescue by Orlando (4.3) in supposedly factual terms, or as an event that really happened. But it contains so many symbols (the ancient oak, the "green and gilded snake," the lioness) that it could be construed as an allegory - specifically, as a quasi-Biblical story of good defeating evil, and mankind overpowering nature.

allusion

❧ Usually an implicit reference, perhaps to another work of literature or art, to a person or an event. It is often a kind of appeal to a reader to share some experience with the writer.

An allusion enriches the text by association with some established tradition. The writer tends to assume that the audience is able to 'pick up' the reference.

There are many allusions in As You Like It:

There is sure another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark.* (Jaques, 5.4.35-36)

[*Alluding to a biblical account in Genesis 7:2 in which pairs of male and female animals shelter on Noah's ark to escape the flood that covers the earth.]

They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.* (Charles, 1.1.111-13)

[*Alluding to the classical myth of an earlier world of perpetual spring, abundance, and ease from which humankind had degenerated (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1). This golden world was often identified with a pastoral life.]

apostrophe

❧ (From the Greek 'turning away.') A figure of speech in which a thing, a place, an abstract quality, an idea, a dead or absent person, is addressed as if present and capable of understanding.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind!

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude. ( As You Like It, 2.7.175-77)

O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!

O night, which ever art when day is not!

O night, O night, alack, alack, alack... ( A Midsummer Night's Dream, 5.1.168-70)

In classical rhetoric, the term could also denote a speaker's turning to address a particular member or section of the audience. The apostrophe is one of the conventions appropriate to the ode and to the elegy. The poet's invocation of a muse in epic poetry is a particular form of apostrophe.

implied reader / audience

❧ The person(s) to whom a text is addressed; the intended audience of a speech. These qualities of a text often have a direct influence on verbal style. For instance, when Touchstone confronts William in As You Like It 5.1, he uses vocabulary to intimidate him, and to impress Audrey with his learning. Another example from the same play is Phoebe's declaration of love to 'Ganymede,' in the letter that Silvius carries:

He that brings this love to thee

Little knows this love in me; (4.3)

irony

❧ (From the Greek 'dissimulation.') A subtly humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance.

At its simplest, as in verbal irony, it involves a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant, as in its crude form, sarcasm. Cross-dressing provides ample opportunity for ironic statements:

I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. (Rosalind in As You Like It, 3.2.335-38)

The more sustained structural irony in literature involves the use of a naïve or deluded hero or unreliable narrator, whose view of the world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author and readers; literary irony thus flatters its readers' intelligence at the expense of a character (or fictional narrator).

A similar sense of detached superiority is achieved by dramatic irony, in which the audience knows more about the character's situation than the character does, foreseeing an outcome contrary to the character's expectations, and thus ascribing a sharply different sense to some of the character's own statements; in tragedies, this is called tragic irony.

The term cosmic irony is sometimes used to denote a view of people as the dupes of a cruelly mocking fate.

mood

❧ Defined by some critics as synonymous with atmosphere, by others as synonymous with tone, and by still others as synonymous with both. Mood is probably closer to atmosphere than to tone, but, as a general term, it can be correctly applied to either. One could say that an author creates a somber mood, thereby using it as a synonym for atmosphere; one could also say than an author's mood is somber, thereby using it as a synonym for tone. Shakespeare uses dialogue to establish mood and setting in Hamlet:

Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart. (Francisco, 1.1.6-7)

perspective/point of view

❧ The position or vantage-point from which the events of a text seem to be observed and presented to us.

The chief distinction usually made between points of view is that between third-person narratives and first-person narratives.

A third-person narrator may be omniscient, and therefore show an unrestricted knowledge of the story's events from outside or 'above' them; but another kind of third-person narrator may confine our knowledge of events to whatever is observed by a single character or a small group of characters, this method being known as 'limited point of view'. A first-person narrator's point of view is normally restricted to their partial knowledge and experience, and therefore will not give us access to other characters' hidden thoughts.

Many modern authors also use multiple points of view, in which readers are shown events from the positions of multiple characters.

symbol

❧ (From the Greek verb symballein, 'to throw together' and its noun symbolon, 'mark', 'emblem', 'token' or 'sign'). An object, animate or inanimate, which represents or 'stands for' something else.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies; that's for thoughts.* (Ophelia, Hamlet, 4.5.173-74)

[*Ophelia, recalling each flower's symbolic meaning, distributes them to Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius.]

Now Hercules be thy speed,* young man! (Rosalind, As You Like It, 1.2.201)

[*may Hercules bring you luck. Hercules' name is synonymous with physical strength. This is also an allusion to the classical hero.]

A symbol differs from an allegorical sign in that it has a real existence, whereas an allegorical sign is arbitrary. It can be an action or a gesture, and in literature it is used to combine an image with a concept (words themselves are a kind of symbol).

tone

❧ The attitude of an author or speaker toward a text's readers, audiences, or subjects. An author's tone may be serious, playful, mocking, and so forth.

Tone is sometimes equated with voice, particularly in the sense of a creative authorial voice that pervades and underlies literary work. It is often used to mean 'tone of voice,' an indeterminate quality of language through which writers (and us in our daily conversations) reveal a range of attitudes towards everything from the subject at hand to those being addressed.

Hamlet's disregard for the body of Polonius is cheeky, flippant, and morbid:

But indeed, if you find him not this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby ( Hamlet, 4.3.34-36).

Although the terms tone and atmosphere may both be equated with mood, their meanings differ. Unlike tone, which refers to the author's attitude, atmosphere refers to the general feeling created for the reader or audience by a work at a given point.

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This is a general introduction to close reading, and a specific set of principles and terms for my own students. This guide to close reading is a subset of my broader guide to Effective Critical Writing. ( It is indebted to similar guides by Robert Matz and John Lye, and to The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 5th edition, ed.

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This helped me breakdown poetry analysis a bit more!