R-ATLIT-12

Close reading

• What does the poem seem to be immediately about?
• What tells you that?
• How can you put these two things into a single pithy sentence?

We don't want to waste time, so don't spend a bunch of time writing the plot. Just write a nutshell summary.

Annotating

• If you can - use different colours to mark out different kinds of annotations. e.g.
  • Red - anything where the abstract has been converted into concrete. Achieved through metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, irony, conceit, imagery, metonymy, motif, objective correlative, synecdoche
  • Blue - anything related to the structure or form of the poem, could include the genre, shape of the poem on the page, gaps and silences, elipses, enjambment, capitalisation, punctuation, verses, lengths, movements, stresses, refrains, feet, elision, caesura.
  • Green - anything related to the sound, rhyme, rhythm or auditory effects. Could include rhyme, rhythm, metre, repetition, dissonance, consonance, alliteration, assonance, end rhyme, half-rhyme, onomatopoeia, sprung rhythm, cacophony, anaphora.
  • Yellow - anything related to the attitudes expressed by/within the poem and the ways in which the reader can identify them. Could be achieved or expressed through tone, mood, irony, positioning, the poetic voice or persona, style, positioning of the reader in relation to key ideas, intertextuality, allusions and representations.
    • Multiple voices in a more modern poem?

Looking for links

• One step that is often overlooked is to look for links between the different elements or techniques. Have another look at your annotations page. Try to draw lines between any techniques that 'speak' to each other or work to build up meanings or ideas when examined in conjunction.

Finding patterns

• The next step is to look for overarching patterns in the piece. These can be thought of as 'movements' or mini-structures. Imagine that examining the poem is akin to looking inside a kaleidoscope. Each pattern you see is like a different mage in the kaleidoscope - rich and memorable, made up of lots of smaller facets. A pattern may be repeating movements in the poem from a large scale view to an intimate one. Or it could be a movement from one voice to many - or from an historical or past perspective to a recent one. What patterns can you trace in your simple poem?

Other approaches to close reading poems

• Aesthetics based readings - These are readings in which the poem is contemplated as a work of art. They involve a strong emphasis on the visual effects or impacts of the poem, how it is structured and the sensory experiences or responses that are evoked in the reader through the use of particular poetic devices. These elements need to be yoked together into a reading that analyses the poem as a particular kind of work of art, taking into consideration the underlying values or ideologies that inform the work and what it might be trying to say. One way into this kind of reading is to imagine the poem as an art object or painting. What would it look like? Why? What makes you say that? What values do its aesthetic qualities seem to be tapping into? How do you know that? Consideration of these things will help produce strong aesthetics based reading of poems.
• Best for poems that connect to your senses/emotions.
• Art is meant to make you feel something, if you feel something when reading poems this is good! :)
  • Unpack this, why are you feeling this? How?

When applying readings

• It helps if you are familiar with the basic principles of that theoretical framework.
• Try not to use more than two key terms relevant to the discourse in your analysis.
• Ensure you define the terms clearly and succinctly, in your introduction or in the opening body of your paragraph.
• Remember that close reading is always 'king'. Never replace a close reading with theoretical or biographical or contextual discussion as the bulk of your essay. Always 'step in' and then 'step out'.

Presenting a reading - key phrases

Note bottom 4 are better. Because the author does things in the top 6, but the reader (you) do the work in the bottom 4. In this case, you are more important, so it should be you doing the work, doing the reading.

"presents" or "contains" is better. Or saying the author explores/constructs/draws/uses. This is better than saying the text, an inanimate object, does things. Which it doesn't.

• The poem explores the idea/experiences/notions...

• The poem constructs a representation of ... People/places/nature/relationships

• On one level the poem describes ... and on another is exploring...

• The poem draws on the Romantic/Modern etc. tradition to...

  • Good-ish. good to identify the genre that a poem belongs to.
  • Especially if you talk about something like "the poem uses {x} conventions and techniques associated with {x} movement despite being written {x} years after"

• The poem uses/appropriates the form of ... in order to...

  • Good when talking about whether a sonnet really is a sonnet, for example.

• The poem's persona/use of imagery/metaphor's constructs...

  • Controlling the interpretation.

• A gendered reading of this poem highlights that...

• A reading of this poem focusing on context shows...

• A psychoanalytic reading of the poem reveals that...

• Whilst the poem can be read as... a gendered reading highlights that...

When doing readings, you can use personal pronouns.

I.e. as a {x}, I can interpret the text as {x}.

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