For years I’ve had an online guide to close reading, the essential skill of literary critics to give a name to the techniques and habits writers use to convey ideas and stories in beautiful language. It defines 35 terms, from alliteration to onomatopoeia to syntax, useful for students in literature courses.
Today I’ve updated the guide to include 4 new terms (stanza, title and epigraphs, denotation, and connotation) that are relevant to close readers of poetry — specifically those in my two classes, who are learning and using these terms.
The guide begins with an introduction on the principles and the rationale for close reading, and the expected links to my sources and other models. It has a step-by-step guide, a link to my model essay, and a list of dos and don’ts. It’s all covered by a Creative Commons license so it’s free for recycling, so long as you don’t profit from the reuse.
It has room for improvement: the 35 terms in the 4 categories are ordered more or less by association (e.g. diction and syntax, simile and metaphor) rather than alphabetically. The examples are nearly all drawn from Shakespeare, arbitrarily enough. And there are no links between entries, like metaphor and allegory.
But those fixes are for another day. For now, I hope the guide proves worth consulting. Let me know.
