Explication

Paper 1: Close Reading/Explication*

The first paper will be a close reading/explication. An explication is a line-by-line analysis of a particular play or poem. The goal of the paper is to provide the audience with a more nuanced reading of the text. You want to show them hidden meanings in the text. Sometimes students confuse an explication/close reading with a summary or complete text or character analysis; don't make that mistake. For this paper, you want to closely examine your passage or poem line-by-line (or in some cases, it will work best on a sentence-by-sentence level). Yes, there will be some summary of what is being said, but the point of this paper is to look deeper. Unpack every line and help the audience get a better understanding of what the speaker is getting at. Is there a mention of a Greek god? Make sure you research that Greek god and tell us about him/her and why this particular god is invoked in this particular passage. Is there something happening in that time that we should know that will help us better understand a phrase or metaphor? Make sure to explain that. If you're looking at a passage from a larger work (something other than a poem), let us know why this particular passage is so important to the overall text (this sort of contextualizing is often relegated to the final paragraph, but it doesn't have to be). The point is: you want to help your audience read and understand this poem or passage in a way they never have before. Pull out the magnifying glass and see what you find.

You may choose from any of the texts that are in verse (use only the translations in our text book!) that we have/will read for class through Elizabeth Barrett Browning (or any of the Sappho poems in our textbook if you’d like to discuss one of the poems we did not read for class). However, you may not use Sappho’s Poems 1 and 31 (since I did the explication for that already), Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy or Horatio’s speech about the possibility of war (Act 1, Scene 1), Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” or any of the passages from the example papers uploaded to D2L. Because they are prose, don’t write about Wollstonecraft or The Thousand and One Nights. If you choose to discuss a lengthy text (Gilgamesh, The Gita, de France’s Lais or Hamlet), you will need to narrow the reading to a specific passage. Make sure the passage is not too large for the paper; you are expected to analyze the passage thoroughly and a lengthy passage is suited for a much longer essay. For this size paper, you will want to keep the passage to ~30 lines. It’s a good idea to include the passage at the beginning of the paper (this doesn’t count toward the page count, though!).

You may need to make use of outside sources for the paper (don’t forget in-text citations and a Works Cited page!). Define terms that are unfamiliar to you and/or you audience, look for meaning in phrases that are particular to the era, and make sure to contextualize the passage both historically and in the larger text/work. For example, if you are discussing a passage from Hamlet, you will want to make sure to contextualize the passage in relation to the entire play (what is going on around the passage? Why is this passage important to the play? What is it telling us about the characters?) and in relation to the era (is there something going on at the time that informs this particular passage?). If you use any sources to help you with the language (see the list we discussed in class), make sure to also cite those sources both in-text and in the Works Cited page. Sources for this paper should be from the library’s database of academic articles, books, or websites that end in .edu, .org, or .gov (any other websites must be approved by me). Do not use websites such as Spark Notes, No Fear Shakespeare, Shmoop, or Gradekeeper for the explication.

Logistics: The paper should be 3-4 pages (not including Works Cited or the passage). Do not turn in a paper that is less than 3 full pages. The paper must be typed, using MLA style: your name, my name, course title, and due date in the upper left-hand corner, 1" margins all around, Times New Roman 12 pt. font, double spaced, no extra space between paragraphs, page numbers in the top right corner, and a title centered in normal font (no bold or underline) at the top of the first page. Include a Works Cited page as the last page of your paper (this does not count toward the word count). Any papers that do not meet these minimum requirements will be returned ungraded and penalized as late.

*Note: I have uploaded to D2L several examples of close readings of poems and passages. Please review these, but keep in mind that, while they show what I’m looking for in the assignment, these are not perfect examples.