Only if you have read eliots silas marner

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Close-reading instructions: Each week, you will choose a specific passage to close-read. This passage can be a stanza or a set of stanzas, a paragraph from a prose work, an exchange between characters in a drama, a moment that you find to be especially significant, etc. The choice of passage and its length is up to you. Please type out your chosen passage and include it in your assignment. After close-reading (with pencil in hand), type two substantial paragraphs examining the passage’s language, tone, setting, punctuation, etc. Remember, your close-reading need not be a definitive explanation of the passage’s “message” or main idea. Rather, this is meant to be an exploration of the text, meaning you may ask questions pertaining to the literature, consider potential answers to your questions, state observations, etc. Be sure to quote specific language from the text. Citing and analyzing the language of the passage is the most important aspect of this assignment (see my model close-reading). Your close-readings are a starting point for more extensive analysis, such as the work you will submit in exams and papers.

Close-reading strategies: 1. Consider your close-reading as an “unpacking or dissecting of the text”. By taking apart the passage,

you are identifying those aspects of the work that give the passage special meaning. You are noting the literary devices (listed below) that produce meaning. In this sense, this is almost a mechanical or scientific process; you are taking the text apart and considering its mechanisms and how those devices draw you to the work or produce meaning of special significance.

2. Note anything that strikes you as unusual or that draws your attention (description, setting, characterization, word choice, punctuation, etc.)

3. Note anything that seems contradictory or somehow troublesome. 4. Consider the potential reasons / function of these choices. What might the author be doing here? Note

that close-reading is often about asking questions of the text. Though you may not come up with a definitive answer (really, to do so isn't the point) exploring your own self-generated questions will direct you toward a particular reading of the passage and perhaps the text as a whole.

5. Consider the overall themes of the text: how does this particular passage contribute or complicate these themes?

6. Consider the information offered in a passage. Why is it significant? What can it tell us about what the author is doing (what meaning he or she is attempting to produce)? This can apply to setting, characterization, the tone in which the information is being delivered, etc.

7. Pay close attention to matters of dress, setting and changes of setting, tone of individual characters and their word choices, irony, sudden turns in plot and tone, and startling moments that seem intended to carry some kind of affective (emotional) charge.

8. Pay special attention to the first page of the text. Most first pages offer you a great amount of detail that is significant to the work as a whole.

9. In respect to poetry, pay close attention to every word. Poetry is such a condensed form that every phrase, piece of punctuation, line break, etc. is significant.

10. The following is a list of literary devices to look for when close-reading: a. Tone: “The reflection of a writer’s attitude (especially toward [his or her] readers), manner, mood

and moral outlook in [the] work; even, perhaps, the way [his or her] personality pervades the work. The counterpart of tone [is] voice in speech, which may be friendly, detached, pompous, officious, intimate, bantering and so forth”

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b. Mood: the overall “feel” of the work, the emotional or affective atmosphere of the text c. Setting: “The where and when of a story or play; the locale. In drama the term may refer to the

scenery or props” d. Point of view: “Point of view in fiction refers to the source and scope of the narrative voice. In

the first-person point of view, usually identifiable by the use of the pronoun "I," a character in the story does the narration. A first-person narrator may also be a minor character, someone within the story but not centrally involved [ …] The author's choice of point of view has a significant effect on the story's voice and on the type of information given to the reader. In first-person narration, for example, what can be shown is limited to the character's observation and thoughts, and any skewed perceptions in the narrator will be passed on to the reader. Third-person point of view occurs when the narrator does not take part in the story. There are three types of third- person point of view. In third-person omniscient, the narrative voice can render information from anywhere, including the thoughts and feelings of any of the characters. This all-knowing perspective allows the narrator to roam freely in the story's setting and even beyond. In third- person limited, sometimes called third-person sympathetic, the narrative voice can relate what is in the minds of only a select few characters (often only one, the point-of-view character). In third-person objective, the narrator renders explicit, observable details and does not have access to the internal thoughts of characters or background information about the setting or situation. A character's thoughts, for example, are inferred only by what is expressed openly, in actions or in words. This point of view is also known as third-person dramatic because it is generally the way drama is developed. While the second-person point of view exists, it is not used very often because making the reader part of the story can be awkward: "You walk to the end of the road and pause before heading towards the river."

e. Narrative voice: The voice of the narrator telling the story f. Narration: Narration refers to the way that a story is told, and so belongs to the level of discourse

(although in first-person narration it may be that the narrator also plays a role in the development of the story itself). The different kinds of narration are categorized by each one's primary grammatical stance: either 1) the narrator speaks from within the story and, so, uses "I" to refer to him- or herself (first person narration); in other words, the narrator is a character of some sort in the story itself, even if he is only a passive observer; or 2) the narrator speaks from outside the story and never employs the "I" (third person narration).

g. Characterization: the means in which the character is “drawn” (dress, dialect, manner of speaking, word choice, etc.)

h. Communication or exchanges among speakers i. Imagery: “Imagery as a general term covers ideas, states of mind, and any sensory or extra-

sensory experience [ … ] Many images (but by no means all) are conveyed by figurative language, as in metaphor [or] simile [ … ] An image may be visual (pertaining to the eye), olfactory (smell), tactile (touch), auditory (hearing), gustatory (taste), abstract (in which case it will appeal to what may be described as the intellect) and kinaesthetic (pertaining to the sense of movement and bodily effort”)

j. Metaphor: “A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another [ … ] a comparison is usually implicit; whereas in simile it is explicit”

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k. Irony: “Most forms of irony [involve] the perception or awareness of a discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meaning, or between actions and results, or between appearance and reality. In all cases there may be an element of the absurd and the paradoxical. The two basic kinds of irony are verbal and irony of situation [ … ] At its simplest, verbal irony involves saying what one does not mean [ … ] Situational irony occurs when, for instance, a man is laughing uproariously at the misfortune of another even while the same misfortune, unbeknownst, is happening to him”.

l. Satire: “The satirist is [ … ] a kind of self-appointed guardian of standards, ideals and truth; or moral as well as aesthetic values. He is a man [or woman] who takes it upon himself [or herself] to correct, censure and ridicule the follies and vices of society and thus to bring contempt and derision upon aberrations from a desirable and civilized norm. Thus satire is a kind of protest, a sublimation and refinement of anger and indignation”.

m. Symbol / Symbolism: “It is an object, animate or inanimate, which represents or ‘stands for’ something else [ … ] Scales, for example, symbolize justice [ … ] Actions and gestures are also symbolic. The clenched fist symbolizes aggression [ … ] A literary symbol combines an image with a concept (words themselves are a kind of symbol). It may be public or private, universal or local”

n. Allegory: “An allegory is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning; and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning. It is a story, therefore, that can be read, understood and interpreted at two levels (and in some cases at three or four levels). It is thus closely associated to the fable and the parable”.

*This is only a partial list of literary devices. *The majority of these definitions are taken from The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. *The link below will take you to Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, available through our library. http://www.oakland.eblib.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/patron/FullRecord.aspx? p=1118755&echo=1&userid=bk8Rp2HsQK87J%2feTij0I1Q%3d %3d&tstamp=1378482148&id=91F44EF21839196F05DBD0B17A4985F17E0EC058