Text Interpretation. Notions of setting, plot, climax etc. Literary devices
Forms of literature
Poetry
A poem is commonly defined as a composition written in verse (although verse has been equally used for epic and dramatic fiction). Poems rely heavily on imagery, precise word choice, and metaphor; they may take the form of measures consisting of patterns of stresses (metric feet) or of patterns of different-length syllables (as in classical prosody); and they may or may not utilize rhyme. One cannot readily characterize poetry precisely. Typically though, poetry as a form of literature makes some significant use of the formal properties of the words it uses — the properties attached to the written or spoken form of the words, rather than to their meaning. Metre depends on syllables and on rhythms of speech; rhyme and alliteration depend on words that have similar pronunciation. Some recent poets, such as E. E. Cummings, made extensive use of words’ visual form.
Poetry perhaps pre-dates other forms of literature: early known examples include the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (dated from around 2700 B.C.), parts of the Bible, the surviving works of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), and the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. In cultures based primarily on oral traditions the formal characteristics of poetry often have a mnemonic function, and important texts: legal, genealogical or moral, for example, may appear first in verse form.
Much poetry uses specific forms: the haiku, the limerick, or the sonnet, for example. A traditional haiku written in Japanese must have something to do with nature, contain seventeen onji (syllables), distributed over three lines in groups of five, seven, and five, and should also have a kigo, a specific word indicating a season. A limerick has five lines, with a rhyme scheme of AABBA, and line lengths of 3,3,2,2,3 stressed syllables. It traditionally has a less reverent attitude towards nature.
Language and tradition dictate some poetic norms: Persian poetry always rhymes, Greek poetry rarely rhymes, Italian or French poetry often does, English and German can go either way (although moderon-rhyming poetry often, perhaps unfairly, has a more “serious” aura). Perhaps the most paradigmatic style of English poetry, blank verse, as exemplified in works by Shakespeare and by Milton, consists of unrhymed iambic pentameters. Some languages prefer longer lines; some shorter ones. Some of these conventions result from the ease of fitting a specific language’s vocabulary and grammar into certain structures, rather than into others; for example, some languages contain more rhyming words than others, or typically have longer words. Other structural conventions come about as the result of historical accidents, where many speakers of a language associate good poetry with a verse form preferred by a particular skilled or popular poet.
Works for theatre (see below) traditionally took verse form. This has now become rare outside opera and musicals, although many would argue that the language of drama remains intrinsically poetic.
In recent years, digital poetry has arisen that takes advantage of the artistic, publishing, and synthetic qualities of digital media.
Drama
A play or drama offers another classical literary form that has continued to evolve over the years. It generally comprises chiefly dialogue between characters, and usually aims at dramatic / theatrical performance (see theatre) rather than at reading. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, opera developed as a combination of poetry, drama, and music. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently.
Greek drama exemplifies the earliest form of drama of which we have substantial knowledge. Tragedy, as a dramatic genre, developed as a performance associated with religious and civic festivals, typically enacting or developing upon well-known historical or mythological themes. Tragedies generally presented very serious Theme.
With the advent of newer technologies, scripts written for non-stage media have been added to this form. War of the Worlds (radio) in 1938 saw the advent of literature written for radio broadcast, and many works of Drama have been adapted for film or television. Conversely, television, film, and radio literature have been adapted to printed or electronic media.
Essays
An essay consists of a discussion of a topic from an author’s personal point of view, exemplified by works by Francis Bacon or by Charles Lamb.
Genres related to the essay may include:
- the memoir, telling the story of an author’s life from the author’s personal point of view
- the epistle: usually a formal, didactic, or elegant letter.
- the blog, an informal short rant about a particular topic or topics, usually opinion
Prose fiction
Prose consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other than simple grammar); “non-poetic writing,” writing, perhaps. The term sometimes appears pejoratively, but prosaic writing simply says something without necessarily trying to say it in a beautiful way, or using beautiful words. Prose writing can of course take beautiful form; but less by virtue of the formal features of words (rhymes, alliteration, metre) but rather by style, placement, or inclusion of graphics. But one need not mark the distinction precisely, and perhaps cannot do so. Note the classifications:
- “prose poetry“, which attempts to convey the aesthetic richness typical of poetry using only prose
- “free verse“, or poetry not adhering to any of the structures of one or another formal poetic style
Narrative fiction (narrative prose) generally favours prose for the writing of novels, short stories, graphic novels, and the like. Singular examples of these exist throughout history, but they did not develop into systematic and discrete literary forms until relatively recent centuries. Length often serves to categorize works of prose fiction. Although limits remain somewhat arbitrary, modern publishing conventions dictate the following:
- A Mini Saga is a short story of exactly 50 words
- A Flash fiction is generally defined as a piece of prose under a thousand words.
- A short story comprises prose writing of less than 10,000 to 20,000 words, but typically more than 500 words, which may or may not have a narrative arc.
- A story containing between 20,000 and 50,000 words falls into the novella category.
- A work of fiction containing more than 50,000 words falls squarely into the realm of the novel.
A novel consists simply of a long story written in prose, yet the form developed comparatively recently. Icelandic prose sagas dating from about the 11th century bridge the gap between traditional national verse epics and the modern psychological novel. In mainland Europe, the Spaniard Cervantes wrote perhaps the first influential novel: Don Quixote, the first part of which was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. Earlier collections of tales, such as Boccaccio‘s Decameron and Chaucer‘s The Canterbury Tales, have comparable forms and would classify as novels if written today. Earlier works written in Asia resemble even more strongly the novel as we now think of it — for example, works such as the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Japanese Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki. Compare to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
Early novels in Europe did not, at the time, count as significant literature, perhaps because “mere” prose writing seemed easy and unimportant. It has become clear, however, that prose writing can provide aesthetic pleasure without adhering to poetic forms. Additionally, the freedom authors gain iot having to concern themselves with verse structure translates often into a more complex plot or into one richer in precise detail than one typically finds even iarrative poetry. This freedom also allows an author to experiment with many different literary and presentation styles — including poetry— in the scope of a single novel.
Other prose literature
Philosophy, history, journalism, and legal and scientific writings traditionally ranked as literature. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in existence; novels and prose stories earned the names “fiction” to distinguish them from factual writing or nonfiction, which writers historically have crafted in prose.
The “literary” nature of science writing has become less pronounced over the last two centuries, as advances and specialization have made new scientific research inaccessible to most audiences; science now appears mostly in journals. Scientific works of Euclid, Aristotle, Copernicus, and Newton still possess great value; but since the science in them has largely become outdated, they no longer serve for scientific instruction, yet they remain too technical to sit well in most programmes of literary study. Outside of “history of science” programmes students rarely read such works. Many books “popularizing” science might still deserve the title “literature”; history will tell.
Philosophy, too, has become an increasingly academic discipline. More of its practitioners lament this situation than occurs with the sciences; nonetheless most new philosophical work appears in academic journals. Major philosophers through history — Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Nietzsche — have become as canonical as any writers. Some recent philosophy works are argued to merit the title “literature”, such as some of the works by Simon Blackburn; but much of it does not, and some areas, such as logic, have become extremely technical to a degree similar to that of mathematics.
A great deal of historical writing can still rank as literature, particularly the genre known as creative nonfiction. So can a great deal of journalism, such as literary journalism. However these areas have become extremely large, and often have a primarily utilitarian purpose: to record data or convey immediate information. As a result the writing in these fields often lacks a literary quality, although it often and in its better moments has that quality. Major “literary” historians include Herodotus, Thucydides and Procopius, all of whom count as canonical literary figures.
Law offers a less clear case. Some writings of Plato and Aristotle, or even the early parts of the Bible, might count as legal literature. The law tables of Hammurabi of Babylon might count. Roman civil law as codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis during the reign of Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire has a reputation as significant literature. The founding documents of many countries, including the United States Constitution, can count as literature; however legal writing now rarely exhibits literary merit.
Game Design Scripts – In essence never seen by the player of a game and only by the developers and/or publishers, the audience for these pieces is usually very small. Still, many game scripts contain immersive stories and detailed worlds making them hidden literary gems.
Most of these fields, then, through specialization or proliferation, no longer generally constitute “literature” in the sense under discussion. They may sometimes count as “literary literature”; more often they produce what one might call “technical literature” or “professional literature”.
Related Narrative Forms
- Graphic novels and comic books present stories told in a combination of sequential artwork, dialogue and text.
- Films, videos and broadcast soap operas have carved out a niche which often parallels the functionality of prose fiction.
- Interactive fiction, a term for a prose-based genre of computer games, occupies a small literary niche.
- Electronic literature is a developing literary genre meant to be read on a computer screen, often making use of hypertext.
A literary technique or literary device may be used by works of literature in order to produce a specific effect on the reader. Literary technique is distinguished from literary genre as military tactics are from military strategy. Thus, though David Copperfield employs satire at certain moments, it belongs to the genre of comic novel, not that of satire. By contrast, Bleak House employs satire so consistently as to belong to the genre of satirical novel. In this way, use of a technique can lead to the development of a new genre, as was the case with one of the first moderovels, Pamela by Samuel Richardson, which by using the epistolary technique strengthened the tradition of the epistolary novel, a genre which had been practiced for some time already but without the same acclaim.
Literary criticism
Literary criticism implies a critique and evaluation of a piece of literature and in some cases is used to improve a work in progress or classical piece. There are many types of literary criticism and each can be used to critique a piece in a different way or critique a different aspect of a piece. The major types of literary criticism are Marxism, Human studies, which umbrellas homosexual studies and feminism, historical, and Traditional, also known as New Criticism.
Themes in literature
Theme is a broad idea in a story, or a message conveyed by a work. This message is usually about life, society or humaature. Themes are usually implied rather than explicitly stated. Deep thematic content is not required in literature; however, some readers would say that all stories inherently project some kind of outlook on life that can be taken as a theme, regardless of whether or not this is the intent of the author. Analysis of changes in dynamic characters can provide insight into a particular theme.
CRITICAL READING: A GUIDE
This is a guide to what you might look for in analyzing literature, particularly poetry and fiction. An analysis explains what a work of literature means, and how it means it; it is essentially an articulation of and a defense of an interpretation which shows how the resources of literature are used to create the meaningfulness of the text. There are people who resist analysis, believing that it ‘tears apart’ a work of art; however a work of art is an artifice, that is, it is made by someone with an end in view: as a made thing, it can be and should be analyzed as well as appreciated. There are several main reasons for analyzing literature:
1. The ultimate end of analysis is, first and foremost, a deeper understanding and a fuller appreciation of the literature — you learn to see more, to uncover or create richer, denser, more interesting meanings. I have a brief page on the ideas of depth, complexity and quality as they relate to literature.
2. Secondly, as literature uses language, images, the essential processes of meaning-making, analysis can lead to a more astute and powerful use of the tools of meaning on the reader’s part.
3. Thirdly, analysis should also teach us to be aware of the cultural delineations of a work, its ideological aspects. Art is not eternal and timeless but is situated historically, socially, intellectually, written and read at particular times, with particular intents, under particular historical conditions, with particular cultural, personal, gender, racial, class and other perspectives. Through art we can see ideology in operation. This can be of particular use in understanding our own culture and time, but has historical applications as well. See my brief page on ideology for an expansion of this.
4. A fourth function of analysis is to help us, through close reading and through reflection, understand the way ideas and feelings are talked about in our culture or in other times and cultures — to have a sense both of communities of meaning, and of the different kinds of understanding there can be about matters of importance to human life. Art can give us access to the symbolic worlds of communities: not only to the kinds of ideas they have about life, but also to the way they feel about them, to the ways they imagine them, to the ways they relate them to other aspects of their lives.
You might also look at my page On the Uses of Studying Literature
This Guide contains the following major sections:
analysis of poetry , analysis of fiction , analysis of prose in fiction , writing an analytical essay .
I: Critical Analysis of Poetry
The process of analyzing a poem
The elements of analysis discussed below are designed to help you identify the ways in which poetry makes its meaning, especially its ‘parts’; they do not give a sense of how one goes about analyzing a poem. It is difficult to give a prescription, as different poems call on different aspects of poetry, different ways of reading, different relationships between feeling, i mages and meanings, and so forth. My general advice, however, is this:
1. look at the title
2. read the poem for the major indicators of its meaning — what aspects of setting, of topic, of voice (the person who is speaking) seem to dominate, to direct your reading?
3. read the ending of the poem — decide where it ‘gets to’
4. divide the poem into parts: try to understand what the organization is, how the poem proceeds, and what elements or principles guide this organization (is there a reversal, a climax, a sequence of some kind, sets of oppositions?)
5. pay attention to the tone of the poem — in brief, its attitude to its subject, as that is revealed in intonation, nuance, the kind of words used, and so forth.
6. now that you’ve looked at the title, the major indicators of ‘topic’, the ending, the organization, the tone, read the poem out loud, trying to project its meaning in your reading. As you gradually get a sense of how this poem is going, what its point and drift is, start noticing more about how the various elements of the poetry work to create its meaning. This may be as different as the kind of imagery used, or the way it uses oppositions, or the level of realism or symbolism of its use of the natural world.
Reading poetry well is a balance among and conjunction of qualities: experience, attention, engagement with the qualities which make the poem resonant or compelling, close reading of structure and relationships. It’s an acquired talent, you have to learn it. When you do, however, more and more meaning, power and beauty start leaping out at you.
Elements of analysis
Here then are some questions to apply to your analysis in order to see how the poem is making its meaning: they cover
genre, the speaker, the subject, the structure, setting, imagery, key statements,
the sound of the poetry, language use, intertextuality,
the way the reader is formed by the poem, the poem’s historical placement, and
ideology or ‘world-view’
1. What is the genre, or form, of the poem?
Is it a sonnet, an elegy, a lyric, a narrative, a dramatic monologue, an epistle, an epic (there are many more). Different forms or genres have different subjects, aims, conventions and attributes. A love sonnet, for instance, is going to talk about different aspects of human experience in different ways with different emphases than is a political satire, and our recognition of these attributes of form or genre is part of the meaning of the poem.
2. Who is speaking in the poem?
Please remember that if the voice of the poem says “I”, that doesn’t mean it is the author who is speaking: it is a voice in the poem which speaks. The voice can be undramatized (it’s just a voice, it doesn’t identify itself), or dramatized (the voice says “I”, or the voice is clearly that of a particular persona, a dramatized character).
Identify the voice. What does the voice have to do with what is happening in the poem, what is its attitude, what is the tone of the voice (tone can be viewed as an expression of attitude). How involved in the action or reflection of the poem is the voice? What is the perspective or ‘point of view’ of the speaker? The perspective can be social, intellectual, political, even physical — there are many different perspectives, but they all contribute to the voice’s point of view, which point of view affects how the world of the poem is seen, and how we respond.
3. What is the argument, thesis, or subject of the poem
What, that is to say, is it apparently ‘about’? Start with the basic situation, and move to consider any key statements; any obvious or less obvious conflicts, tensions, ambiguities; key relationships, especially conflicts, parallels, contrasts; any climaxes or problems posed or solved (or not solved); the poem’s tone; the historical, social, and emotional setting.
4. What is the structure of the poem?
There are two basic kinds of structure, formal and thematic.
Formal structure is the way the poem goes together in terms of its component parts: if there are parts — stanza’s, paragraphs or such — then there will be a relation between the parts (for instance the first stanza may give the past, the second the present, the third the future).
Thematic structure, known in respect to fiction as ‘plot’, is the way the argument or presentation of the material of the poem is developed. For instance a poem might state a problem in eight lines, an answer to the problem in the next six; of the eight lines stating the problem, four might provide a concrete example, four a reflection on what the example implies. There may well be very close relations between formal and thematic structure. When looking at thematic structure, you might look for conflicts, ambiguities and uncertainties, the tensions in the poem, as these give clear guides to the direction of meanings in the poem, the poem’s ‘in-tensions’.
5. How does the poem make use of setting?
There is the setting in terms of time and place, and there is the setting in terms of the physical world described in the poem.
In terms of the physical world of the poem, setting can be used for a variety of purposes. A tree might be described in specific detail, a concrete, specific, tree; or it might be used in a more tonal way, to create mood or associations, with say the wind blowing mournfully through the willows; or it might be used as a motif, the tree that reminds me of Kathryn, or of my youthful dreams; or it might be used symbolically, as for instance an image of organic life; or it might be used allegorically, as a representation of the cross of Christ (allegory ties an image or event to a specific interpretation, a doctrine or idea; symbols refer to broader, more generalized meanings).
Consider this a spectrum, from specific, concrete, to abstract, allegorical:
concrete — tonal — connotative — symbolic — allegorical
6. How does the poem use imagery?
“Imagery” refers to any sort of image, and there are two basic kinds. One is the images of the physical setting, described above. The other kind is images as figures of speech, such as metaphors. These figures of speech extend the imaginative range, the complexity and comprehensibility of the subject. They can be very brief, a word or two, a glistening fragment of insight, a chance connection sparked into a blaze (warming or destroying) of understanding; or they can be extended analogies, such as Donne’s ‘conceits’or Milton’s epic similes.
7. Are there key statements or conflicts in the poem that appear to be central to its meaning?
Is the poem direct or indirect in making its meanings? If there are no key statements, are there key or central symbol, repetitions, actions, motifs (recurring images), or the like?
8. How does the sound of the poetry contribute to its meaning?
Pope remarked that “the sound must seem an echo to the sense”: both the rhythm and the sound of the words themselves (individually and as they fit together) contribute to the meaning.
9. Examine the use of language.
What kinds of words are used? How much and to what ends does the poet rely on connotation, or the associations that words have (as “stallion” connotes a certain kind of horse with certain sorts of uses)? Does the poem use puns, double meanings, ambiguities of meaning?
10. Can you see any ways in which the poem refers to, uses or relies on previous writing?
This is known as allusion or intertextuality. When U-2’s Bono writes “I was thirsty and you kissed my lips” in “Trip Through Your Wires,” the meaning of the line is vastly extended if you know that this is a reference to Matthew 25:35 in the Bible, where Jesus says to the saved in explanation of what they did right, “I was thirsty and you wet my lips.”
11. What qualities does the poem evoke in the reader?
What sorts of learning, experience, taste and interest would the ‘ideal’ or ‘good’ reader of this poem have? What can this tell you about what the poem ‘means’ or is about? The idea is that any work of art calls forth certain qualities of response, taste, experience, value, from the reader, and in a sense ‘forms’ the reader of that particular work. This happens through the subject matter, the style, the way the story is told or the scene set, the language, the images, the allusions, all the ways in which we are called by the text to construct meaning. The theorist Wayne Booth calls the reader as evoked or formed by the text the “implied reader.”
12. What is your historical and cultural distance from the poem?
What can you say about the difference between your culture’s (and sub-culture’s) views of the world, your own experiences, on the one hand, and those of the voice, characters, and world of the poem on the other? What is it that you might have to understand better in order to experience the poem the way someone of the same time, class, gender and race might have understood it? Is it possible that your reading might be different from theirs because of your particular social (race, gender, class, etc.) and historical context? What about your world governs the way you see the world of the text? What might this work tell us about the world of its making?
13. What is the world-view and the ideology of the poem?
What are the basic ideas about the world that are expressed? What areas of human experience are seen as important, and what is valuable about them? What areas of human experience or classes of person are ignored or denigrated? A poem about love, for instance, might implicitly or explicitly suggest that individual happiness is the most important thing in the world, and that it can be gained principally through one intimate sexually-based relationship — to the exclusion, say, of problems of social or political injustice, human brokenness and pain, or other demands on us as humans. It might also suggest that the world is a dangerous, uncertain place in which the only sure ground of meaningfulness is to be found in human relationships, or it might suggest on the other hand that human love is grounded in divine love, and in the orderliness and the value of the natural world with all its beauties. What aspects of the human condition are foregrounded, what are suppressed, in the claims that the poem makes by virtue of its inclusions and exclusions, certainties and uncertainties, and depictions of the way the natural and the human world is and works? For a brief elaboration of the concept of ideology, see my page on the subject.
The analysis of fiction has many similarities to the analysis of poetry. As a rule a work of fiction is a narrative, with characters, with a setting, told by a narrator, with some claim to represent ‘the world’ in some fashion.
The topics in this section are plot, character, setting, the narrator, figurative language, the way reality is represented, the world-view.
As a narrative a work of fiction has a certain arrangement of events which are taken to have a relation to one another. This arrangement of events to some end — for instance to create significance, raise the level of generality, extend or complicate the meaning — is known as ‘plot’. Narrative is integral to human experience; we use it constantly to make sense out of our experience, to remember and relate events and significance, and to establish the basic patterns of behaviour of our lives. If there is no apparent relation of events in a story our options are either to declare it to be poorly written or to assume that the lack of relation is thematic, mean to represent the chaotic nature of human experience, a failure in a character’s experience or personality, or the lack of meaningful order in the universe.
In order to establish significance iarrative there will often be coincidence, parallel or contrasting episodes, repetitions of various sorts, including the repetition of challenges, crises, conciliations, episodes, symbols, motifs. The relationship of events in order to create significance is known as the plot.
2. Character.
Characters in a work of fiction are generally designed to open up or explore certain aspects of human experience. Characters often depict particular traits of humaature; they may represent only one or two traits — a greedy old man who has forgotten how to care about others, for instance, or they may represent very complex conflicts, values and emotions. Usually there will be contrasting or parallel characters, and usually there will be a significance to the selection of kinds of characters and to their relation to each other. As in the use of setting, in fact in almost any representation in art, the significance of a character can vary from the particular, the dramatization of a unique individual, to the most general and symbolic, for instance the representation of a’Christ figure’.
Narrative requires a setting; this as in poetry may vary from the concrete to the general. Often setting will have particular culturally coded significance — a sea-shore has a significance for us different from that of a dirty street corner, for instance, and different situations and significances can be constructed through its use. Settings, like characters, can be used in contrasting and comparative ways to add significance, can be repeated, repeated with variations, and so forth.
A narration requires a narrator, someone (or more than one) who tells the story. This person or persons will see things from a certain perspective, or point of view, in terms of their relation to the events and in terms of their attitude(s) towards the events and characters. A narrator may be external, outside the story, telling it with an ostensibly objective and omniscient voice; or a narrator may be a character (or characters) within the story, telling the story in the first person (either central characters or observer characters, bit players looking in on the scene). First-person characters may be reliable, telling the truth, seeing things right, or they may be unreliable, lacking in perspective or self-knowledge. If a narration by an omniscient external narrator carries us into the thoughts of a character in the story, that character is known as a reflector character: such a character does not know he or she is a character, is unaware of the narration or the narrator. An omniscient, external narrator may achieve the narrative by telling or by showing, and she may keep the reader in a relation of suspense to the story (we know no more than the characters) or in a relation of irony (we know things the characters are unaware of).
In any case, who it is who tells the story, from what perspective, with what sense of distance or closeness, with what possibilities of knowledge, and with what interest, are key issues in the making of meaning iarrative. For a fuller discussion, see my page Narrative point of view: some considerations.
As in poetry, there will be figurative language; as in drama, this language tends to be used to characterize the sensibility and understanding of characters as well as to establish thematic and tonal continuities and significance.
Fiction generally claims to represent ‘reality’ (this is known as representation or mimesis) in some way; however, because any narrative is presented through the symbols and codes of human meaning and communication systems, fiction cannot represent reality directly, and different narratives and forms of narrative represent different aspects of reality, and represent reality in different ways. A narrative might be very concrete and adhere closely to time and place, representing every-day events; on the other hand it may for instance represent psychological or moral or spiritual aspects through symbols, characters used representatively or symbolically, improbable events, and other devices. In addition you should remember that all narrative requires selection, and therefore it requires exclusion as well, and it requires devices to put the selected elements of experience in meaningful relation to each other (and here we are back to key elements such as coincidence, parallels and opposites, repetitions).
As narrative represents experience in some way and as it uses cultural codes and language to do so, it inevitably must be read, as poetry, for its structure of values, for its understanding of the world, or world-view, and for its ideological assumptions, what is assumed to be natural and proper. Every narrative communication makes claims, often implicitly, about the nature of the world as the narrator and his or her cultural traditions understand it to be. The kind of writing we call “literature” tends to use cultural codes and to use the structuring devices of narrative with a high degree of intentionality in order to offer a complex understanding of the world. The astute reader of fiction will be aware of the shape of the world that the fiction projects, the structure of values that underlie the fiction (what the fiction explicitly claims and what it implicitly claims through its codes and its ideological understandings); will be aware of the distances and similarities between the world of the fiction and the world that the reader inhabits; and will be aware of the significances of the selections and exclusions of the narrative in representing human experience.
III: Analysis of Prose in Fiction
Someone is always speaking in a novel — whether it is a narrator who is not a character within the fiction, or a character within the narrative. Consequently both the particular ideas, attitudes, feelings, perspectives of that speaker, and the concerns and attitudes of the novel as a whole, will be presented through the prose The analytical reader needs to understand what information is conveyed and how it is conveyed. The following is a guide to some things to look for, and contains:
A. prose: the language; sentence structure; imagery and setting; discourse features.
B. characterization
C. genre and tradition
A. The Passage as Prose.
a. What kind of language is used? Here are some possibilities:
Is the language
i. abstract or concrete language
ii. language of emotions or of reason
iii. language of control or language of openness
b. What are the connotations of the language? How much language is connotative? What areas of experience, feeling, and meaning are evoked? When Conrad writes that a gate was “a neglected gap,” we have to take notice, as a gate is not ordinarily a gap, nor is the issue of neglect or care usually applied to gaps. Conrad intends to imply, to connote, certain qualities through his language use.
c. How forceful is the language (see also imagery and sentence structure)?
d. what aspects of feeling are supported or created by the sound of the language?
i. by the vowel and consonant sounds — soft or hard long or short
ii. by how the words go together — e.g. smoothly, eliding, so that one slides into the other, or separated by your need to move your mouth position.
2. Sentence structure: Meaning is created by how the sentences sound, by how they are balanced, by the force created by punctuation as well as by language:
a. by the stresses on words, and the rhythm of the sentence
b. by the length of the sentence
c. by whether the sentence has repetitions, parallels, balances and so forth
d. by the punctuation, and how it makes the sentence sound and flow.
3. Imagery and setting: Images and use of setting can tell you a great deal about a character, a narrator, a fictional work:
a. Imagery as figurative language: what sort of metaphors, similes and analogies does the speaker use, and what does that tell you about their outlook and sensibility?
b. Images as motifs: are their recurring images? What ideas or feelings are aroused by them, what people or events are brought to mind by them?
c. Imagery as setting: How is the setting used? To create a sense of realism? To create mood? To represent or create a sense of states of mind or feelings? To stand for other things (i.e. symbolic or allegorical — as for instance Wuthering Heights and Thrushcroft Grange in Wuthering Heights might be said to stand for two ways of viewing the world or two different sociological perspectives, and jungle in Heart of Darkness might be said to stand for the primeval past or for the heart of humankind)?
a. how long does the person speak?
b. are the sentences logically joined or disjointed, rational or otherwise ordered, or disorderly?
c. what tone or attitude does the talk seem to have?
d. does the speaker avoid saying things, deliberately or unconsciously withhold information, communicate by indirection?
e. to what extent and to what end does the speaker use rhetorical devices such as irony?
B. Characterization The idea here is that the various features of the prose, above, will support features of characterization which we can discuss in somewhat different terms.
1. What ideas are expressed in the passage, and what do they tell you about the speaker?
2. What feelings does the speaker express? What does that tell you about them? Are their feelings consistent?
3. Does the character belong to a particular character type or represent a certain idea, value, quality or attitude?
4. What is the social status of the character, and how can you tell from how they speak and what they speak about?
5. What is the sensibility of the speaker? Is the person ironic, witty, alert to the good or attuned to evil in others, optimistic or pessimistic, romantic or not romantic (cynical, or realistic?).
6. What is the orientation of the person — how aware are they of their own and others’ needs, and of their environments?
7. How much control over and awareness of her emotions, her thoughts, her language does the speaker have?
8. How does the narrator characterize the character through comment or through description?
Different traditions and genres tend to use language and characters and setting and plot differently, and this may show in individual passages. Is it a satire, a comedy, a tragedy, a romance? Is it a novel of social comment, an exploration of an idea? (There are more kinds.) Is it in a certain sub-genre like a detective novel, science fiction, etc.? Is it an allegory or a satire, is it realistic or more symbolic? How does this genre, sub-genre or tradition tend to use setting, characters, language, mood or tone? Does this one fit in?
Interpreting Literature
Many people are wary of interpreting literature. They see interpretation as arbitrary, arcane, and possibly fraudulent, as something teachers do to baffle students. However, we all interpret as we read. To read (at least with understanding and appreciation) is to interpret.
Interpretation includes a number of different things readers do. Most commonly, people think that to interpret is to decode meanings hidden in the writing by the author. The question asked is, “What did the author really mean?” This question shows a simplistic understanding of what imaginative writing is and how literature works. Other areas of this map iscuss the writing process and how it leads to discovery.
Here, I want to discuss the reader’s role in relation to the writer and the text.
The World of the Text
The text develops its own context—call it a world.
The World of the Reader
When one reads, one reads in the context of his or her own world. What the reader encounters is not the world of the author; the reader encounters the world of the text. More information on this process.
The meaning which the text has for the reader emerges from the interaction of the reader’s world with the world of the text. The meaning does not reside in the text or in the author’s intentions. The meaning happens as the text is read and reflected upon.
Of course, knowledge of the author’s world and intentions, and of the responses of other readers, can help one read a text better—with more insight and satisfaction.
Intrepretation, then, is something a reader does in response to a text. But it is important to recognise that a text can be meaningful to reader who caot express that meaning in words. “Meaning precedes explanation.”
Have I just said that a text can mean anything at all to a reader? Yes, I have. However, if one is to share the meaning of a text with someone else, one has to be able to explain that meaning in clear and convincing terms. In fact, discussion among readers can develop the meaning(s) of a text in more detail and more depth. Even if two readers disagree on the meaning of a text, they can each gain from discussion.
When you write out your interpretation of a novel, you create a text which has its own world. The reader of your interpretation responds to it in terms of his or her world, just as you read the novel in terms of your world. Thus, this same diagram applies to your interpretative text as well as applying to your reading of the original text.
Interpretation is not an arcane skill taught only to the initiated. It is an activity we all take part in, in more ways than we realize. What I’ve said about interpretation applies also to music, movies, television, drama, the visual arts, . . . .
I hope you will take courage in your skills as a reader, realizing that the meaning of a text is not fixed in advance, but something that happens as you read, reflect, and discuss. Discussing what you read can be an adventure as you explore meanings.
Characterization:
Characterization is the author’s presentation and development of characters. We can get to know a character “directly” when the writer clearly tells us what a character is like and what might be expected of him/her, or we get to know a character “indirectly” by watching and listening to him/her. The lead character in any literature is the “protagonist,” and the character working in opposition to the “protagonist” is called the “antagonist.” It is possible that both, only one, or neither of these characters is human. Either might be an animal or a force of nature (storm, the sea, drought, etc). In fact, sometimes one character is both “protagonist” and “antagonist” when the character is fighting with himself about something or “is his own worst enemy.”
A “complex” or “round” (terms are interchangeable) character is an interesting character, who has multiple personality facets and whose actions are rarely easy to “second guess.” On the other hand, a “simple” or “flat” character is pretty much “what you see is what you get.” This is not usually a very interesting character and typically can be “second guessed” quite easily (examples: the town drunk, the nagging wife, etc.). Any stereotype character is a “simple” or “flat”
character.
One other facet of character analysis is whether or not the character has evolved in some way throughout the story. If a character changes attitude, behavior, or knowledge between the beginning and the end of a story, then that character is said to be “dynamic.” If the character is the same at the end of the story as he/she was at the beginning, then the character is “static.”
Theme:
The “theme” is the central idea in the piece of literature. It is not the same as the subject or topic. “Theme” is what the work says about the subject. It is actually a comment on mankind in general (example: “love can survive all odds,” “crime brings punishment,” etc.). The “theme is not derived from any section of the piece of literature but, instead, comes from an analysis of the message presented by the work as a whole. It is possible for a lengthy, complex piece of literature to have more than one “theme.”
Setting:
Setting includes several closely related aspects of a work of literature. First, setting is the physical world of the work (where it happened). Second, it is the time in which the action takes place; the amount of time that passes during the story; and how that passage of time is perceived by the lead character. Third, it is the social environment of the characters: manners, customs, moral values.
“Tone” relates to both setting and point of view. It is the narrator’s attitude toward the subject (humorous, fearful, angry, sarcastic,serious, etc.)
Point of View:
Point of view is the perspective from which the story is told—through whose “eyes” and “mind” the story is portrayed. There are 4 major points of view from which an author can choose.
Omniscient point of view – the author, not one of the characters, tells the story, and the author assumes complete knowledge of the characters’ actions, thoughts, and locations. This gives a great overview but prevents “identification” with any single character.
Limited omniscient point of view – the author still narrates the story but now gives us the thoughts and feelings of only one character. This can result in readers’ close “identification” with that character.
First-person point of view – One of the characters tells the story from his or her own perspective; therefore, the pronouns “I,” “we,” and ”me” are used throughout. First-person point of view can, but doesn’t always, give the readers the clearest picture of the story; in fact, if the character telling the story is too immature, senile, inebriated, etc. to realize exactly what is going on, then the story picture being
painted for the reader is not an authentic one.
Objective point of view – Though the author is the narrator of the story, he/she does not enter the mind or heart of any of the characters. It is as though one is an outsider looking in, seeing all the action and hearing the dialog but knowing none of the thoughts or feelings involved.
Glossary
Abolitionism:
An active movement to end slavery in the U.S. North before the Civil War in the 1860s.
Allusion:
An implied or indirect reference in a literary text to another text.
Beatnik:
The artistic and literary rebellion against established society of the 1950s and early 1960s associated with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others. “Beat” suggests holiness (“beatification”) and suffering (“beaten down”).
Boston Brahmins:
Influential and respected 19th-century New England writers who maintained the genteel tradition of upper-class values.
Calvinism:
A strict theological doctrine of the French Protestant church reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) and the basis of Puritan society. Calvin held that all humans were born sinful and only God’s grace (not the church) could save a person from hell.
Canon:
An accepted or sanctioned body of literary works considered to be permanently established and of high quality.
Captivity narrative:
An account of capture by Native-American tribes, such as those created by writers Mary Rowlandson and John Williams in colonial times.
Character writing:
A popular 17th- and 18th-century literary sketch of a character who represents a group or type.
Chekhovian:
Similar in style to the works of the Russian author Anton Pavlovitch Chekhov. Chekhov (1860-1904), one of the major short story writers and dramatists of modern times, is known for both his humorous one-act plays and his full-length tragedies.
Civil War:
The war (1861-1865) between the northern U.S. states, which remained in the Union, and the southern states, which seceded and formed the Confederacy. The victory of the North ended slavery and preserved the Union.
Conceit:
An extended metaphor. The term is used to characterize aspects of Renaissance metaphysical poetry in England and colonial poetry, such as that of Anne Bradstreet, in colonial America.
Cowboy poetry:
Verse based on oral tradition, and often rhymed or metered, that celebrates the traditions of the western U.S. cattle culture. Its subjects include nature, history, folklore, family, friends, and work. Cowboy poetry has its antecedents in the ballad style of England and the Appalachian South.
Domestic novel:
A novel about home life and family that often emphasizes the personalities and attributes of its characters over the plot. Many domestic novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries employed a certain amount of sentimentality — usually a blend of pathos and humor.
Enlightenment:
An 18th-century movement that focused on the ideals of good sense, benevolence, and a belief in liberty, justice, and equality as the natural rights of man.
Existentialism:
A philosophical movement embracing the view that the suffering individual must create meaning in an unknowable, chaotic, and seemingly empty universe.
Expressionism:
A post-World War I artistic movement, of German origin, that distorted appearances to communicate inner emotional states.
Fabulist:
A creator or writer of fables (short narratives with a moral, typically featuring animals as characters) or of supernatural stories incorporating elements of myth and legend.
Faulknerian:
In a style reminiscent of William Faulkner (1897-1962), one of America’s major 20th-century novelists, who chronicled the decline and decay of the aristocratic South. Unlike earlier regionalists who wrote about local color, Faulkner created literary works that are complex in form and often violent and tragic in content.
Faust:
A literary character who sells his soul to the devil in order to become all-knowing, or godlike; protagonist of plays by English Renaissance dramatist Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) and German Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).
Feminism:
The view, articulated in the 19th century, that women are inherently equal to men and deserve equal rights and opportunities. More recently, feminism is a social and political movement that took hold in the United States in the late 1960s and soon spread globally.
Fugitives:
Poets who collaborated in The Fugitive, a magazine published between 1922 and
Genre:
A category of literary forms (novel, lyric poem, epic, for example).
Global literature:
Contemporary writing from the many cultures of the world. Selections include literature ascribed to various religious, ideological, and ethnic groups within and across geographic boundaries.
Hartford Wits:
A patriotic but conservative late 18th-century literary circle centered at Yale College in Connecticut (also known as the Connecticut Wits).
Hip-hop poetry:
Poetry that is written on a page but performed for an audience. Hip-hop poetry, with its roots in African-American rhetorical tradition, stresses rhythm, improvisation, free association, rhymes, and the use of hybrid language.
Hudibras:
A mock-heroic satire by English writer Samuel Butler (1612-1680). Hudibras was imitated by early American revolutionary-era satirists.
Iambic:
A metrical foot consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable, or of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.
Image:
Concrete representation of an object, or something seen.
Imagists:
A group of mainly American poets, including Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, who used sharp visual images and colloquial speech; active from 1912 to 1914.
Iowa Writers’ Workshop:
A graduate program in creative writing at the University of Iowa in which talented, generally young writers work on manuscripts and exchange ideas about writing with each other and with established poets and prose writers.
Irony:
A meaning, often contradictory, concealed behind the apparent meaning of a word or phrase.
Kafkaesque:
Reminiscent of the style of Czech-borovelist and short story writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Kafka’s works portray the oppressiveness of modern life, and his characters frequently find themselves in threatening situations for which there is no explanation and from which there is no escape.
Knickerbocker School:
New York City-based writers of the early 1800s who imitated English and European literary fashions.
Language poetry:
Poetry that stretches language to reveal its potential for ambiguity, fragmentation, and self-assertion within chaos. Language poets favor open forms and multicultural texts; they appropriate images from popular culture and the media, and refashion them.
McCarthy era:
The period of the Cold War (late 1940s and early 1950s) during which U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy pursued American citizens whom he and his followers suspected of being members or former members of, or sympathizers with, the Communist party. His efforts included the creation of “blacklists” in various professions — rosters of people who were excluded from working in those fields. McCarthy ultimately was denounced by his Senate colleagues.
Metafiction:
Fiction that emphasizes the nature of fiction, the techniques and conventions used to write it, and the role of the author.
Metaphysical poetry:
Intricate type of 17th-century English poetry employing wit and unexpected images.
Middle Colonies:
The present-day U.S. mid-Atlantic states — New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware — known originally for commercial activities centered around New York City and Philadelphia.
Midwest:
The central area of the United States, from the Ohio River to the Rocky Mountains, including the Prairie and Great Plains regions (also known as the Middle West).
Minimalism:
A writing style, exemplified in the works of Raymond Carver, that is characterized by spareness and simplicity.
Mock-epic:
A parody using epic form (also known as mock-heroic).
Modernism:
An international cultural movement after World War I expressing disillusionment with tradition and interest iew technologies and visions.
Motif:
A recurring element, such as an image, theme, or type of incident.
Muckrakers:
American journalists and novelists (1900-1912) whose spotlight on corruption in business and government led to social reform.
Multicultural:
The creative interchange of numerous ethnic and racial subcultures.
Myth:
A legendary narrative, usually of gods and heroes, or a theme that expresses the ideology of a culture.
Naturalism:
A late 19th- and early 20th-century literary approach of French origin that vividly depicted social problems and viewed human beings as helpless victims of larger social and economic forces.
Neoclassicism:
An 18th-century artistic movement, associated with the Enlightenment, drawing on classical models and emphasizing reason, harmony, and restraint.
New England:
The region of the United States comprising the present-day northeastern states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut and noted for its early industrialization and intellectual life. Traditionally, New England is the home of the shrewd, independent, thrifty “Yankee” trader.
New Journalism:
A style of writing made popular in the United States in the 1960s by Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, and Norman Mailer, who used the techniques of story-telling and characterization of fiction writers in creating nonfiction works.
Objectivist:
A mid-20th-century poetic movement, associated with William Carlos Williams, stressing images and colloquial speech.
Old Norse:
The ancient Norwegian language of the sagas, virtually identical to modern Icelandic.
Oral tradition:
Transmission by word of mouth; tradition passed down through generations; verbal folk tradition.
Plains Region:
The middle region of the United States that slopes eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the Prairie.
Poet Laureate:
An individual appointed as a consultant in poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress for a term of generally one year. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of poetry.
Poetry slam:
A spoken-word poetry competition.
Postmodernism:
A media-influenced aesthetic sensibility of the late 20th century characterized by open-endedness and collage. Postmodernism questions the foundations of cultural and artistic forms through self-referential irony and the juxtaposition of elements from popular culture and electronic technology.
Prairie:
The level, unforested farm region of the midwestern United States.
Primitivism:
A belief that nature provides truer and more healthful models than does culture. An example is the myth of the “noble savage.”
Puritans:
English religious and political reformers who fled their native land in search of religious freedom, and who settled and colonized New England in the 17th century.
Reformation:
A northern European political and religious movement of the 15th through 17th centuries that attempted to reform Catholicism; eventually gave rise to Protestantism.
Reflexive:
Self-referential. A literary work is reflexive when it refers to itself.
Regional writing:
Writing that explores the customs and landscape of a region of the United States.
Revolutionary War:
The War of Independence, 1775-1783, fought by the American colonies against Great Britain.
Romance:
Emotionally heightened, symbolic Americaovels associated with the Romantic period.
Romanticism:
An early 19th-century movement that elevated the individual, the passions, and the inner life. Romanticism, a reaction against neoclassicism, stressed strong emotion, imagination, freedom from classical correctness in art forms, and rebellion against social conventions.
Saga:
An ancient Scandinaviaarrative of historical or mythical events.
Salem Witch Trials:
Proceedings for alleged witchcraft held in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Nineteen persons were hanged and numerous others were intimidated into confessing or accusing others of witchcraft.
Self-help book:
A book telling readers how to improve their lives through their own efforts. The self-help book has been a popular American genre from the mid-19th century to the present.
Separatists:
A strict Puritan sect of the 16th and 17th centuries that preferred to separate from the Church of England rather than reform. Many of those who first settled America were separatists.
Slave narrative:
The first black literary prose genre in the United States, featuring accounts of the lives of African Americans under slavery.
South:
A region of the United States comprising the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as eastern Texas.
Surrealism:
A European literary and artistic movement that uses illogical, dreamlike images and events to suggest the unconscious.
Syllabic versification:
Poetic meter based on the number of syllables in a line.
Synthesis:
A blending of two senses; used by Edgar Allan Poe and others to suggest hidden correspondences and create exotic effects.
Tall tale:
A humorous, exaggerated story common on the American frontier, often focusing on cases of superhuman strength.
Theme:
An abstract idea embodied in a literary work.
Tory:
A wealthy pro-English faction in America at the time of the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s.
Transcendentalism:
A broad, philosophical movement in New England during the Romantic era (peaking between 1835 and 1845). It stressed the role of divinity iature and the individual’s intuition, and exalted feeling over reason.
Trickster:
A cunning character of tribal folk narratives (for example those of African Americans and Native Americans) who breaks cultural codes of behavior; often a culture hero.
Vision song:
A poetic song that members of some Native-American tribes created when purifying themselves through solitary fasting and meditation.
SELECTED INTERNET RESOURCES
American Authors on the Web
A very comprehensive site from Nagoya University that presents a chronological listing of almost 800 American authors and includes biographical authors and/or writing samples for the majority of them.
American Collection: Educators Site
A Web site posted in connection with a U.S. Public Broadcasting Service television series oine American authors. Designed for educators, the site contains teaching resources, lesson plans, background information, and author profiles. The site also includes an “American Writing Gateway” that links to Web sites focused on some 50 of America’s most prominent authors.
American Literary Classics: A Chapter A Day Library
Contains the complete texts of some 25 popular American literary classics, along with a handful of British works, each arranged in a large-type chapter-by-chapter format. Among the selections are “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Main Street,” “Moby-Dick,” “The Red Badge of Courage,” and “The House of Seven Gables.”
American Literature, Keele
Includes three virtual libraries that contain, respectively, electronic texts and resources for 18th and 19th century American literature, electronic texts and resources for 20th century American literature, and literature by and on black Americans. Also includes links to other American and global literature Web sites, as well as an electronic archives for teaching American literature.
