Literary Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Texts

Posted on May 7, 2024 in Language

Belles Lettres

A literary text is an artistic text, i.e., belles lettres, which is aesthetic and creates beauty and provokes emotions using words. We could define literature as writing that claims consideration based on the beauty of its form or emotional effect.

The Canonization

We can observe a high density of literary resources, such as similes, parallelisms, and ellipsis, at the microstyle level in sentences, paragraphs, or short poems. Other texts, especially narrative texts like realistic novels, show less density of literary resources. Their artistry resides in features of macrostyle, plot construction, and character study.

Interpretation

Literary texts may have different intentions and general meanings for different readers, as long as their interpretations are coherently grounded in the text. For instance, there is no general agreement in specialized criticism about the general meaning of great pieces of literature.

Addresser

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles was initially published in a serialized version in a newspaper in 1891 and later appeared as a book in 1892.

Literary Appreciation

  1. Close and attentive reading of the text.
  2. Locate the text within its period, author, and works.
  3. Determine the theme and motifs.
  4. Determine the structure.
  5. Analyze the form and how it contributes to enhancing the theme.
  6. Give a final conclusion.

“Literary”

The term “literary” encompasses three areas of competence:

  1. Linguistic and textual competence: Knowledge about the features and rules of language concerning pronunciation, sentence formation, vocabulary, and how they convey meaning.
  2. Discursive competence: The ability to relate aspects of textual meaning to specific communicative situations.
  3. Sociocultural competence: The ability to recognize the context of interpersonal relations where communication takes place and the context of referential relations between the text and other discourses.

Acceptable Interpretation

An acceptable interpretation must go beyond the surface or literal meaning of a text and capture the indirect ways through which the literary text expresses itself in themes, motifs, atmosphere, the harmony of the whole, and the relationship of literary devices to themes or the social insertion of reality in the text.

Postcolonial Reading

Postcolonial reading involves reading and rereading texts of both metropolitan and colonial cultures to draw attention to the profound and inescapable effects of colonization on literary production.

Verse Poetry

Verse is not synonymous with poetry. Much historical verse in literature is not poetry but narrative (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s Faery Queen) or drama (medieval drama in diverse verse forms or Elizabethan drama mainly in iambic pentameter).

Poetry

  1. Poetry is a highly overcoded variety of literary language usually formalized through verse.
  2. It is also formalized through a high density of other literary resources: rhyme, schemes, tropes, and figures of thought.
  3. The central or core component of poetry as a system is the lyric.
  4. The attitude of the narrator in the lyric is internal-intimate.
  5. The main concern of poetry is the expression of emotions.

Rhyming Patterns

  • Tercet: three lines with one rhyme (AAA, BBB, CCC, etc.)
  • Terza rima: interlocking triplets, rhyming ABA BCB CDC, etc.
  • Sonnet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG (Shakespearean), ABAB BCBC CDCD EE (Spenserian), ABBAABBA CDECDE (Petrarchan)
  • Ottava rima: eight-line rhyming ABABABCC

Tropes and Figures

Tropes deal with content and involve altering the normal meaning of an expression, foregrounding irregularities of content.

Figures of thought are more concerned with the psychological strategy of developing a theme. They deal with emotional appeals and techniques of argument.

Scheme

The scheme illustrates the complex communication channels in a literary work, with multiple addressers and addressees, such as in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

Unreliable Narrator

In cases of an ‘unreliable narrator,’ the reader produces a double response: one to the questionable actions of a character and another regulated by their participation as implied readers on the implied author’s judgment.

Informants

Informants serve to identify and locate in time and space, bringing ready-made knowledge to the text.

12 Types of Characters

  • Major or central characters: Vital to the development and resolution of the conflict.
  • Minor characters: Complement the major characters and help move the plot events forward.
  • Dynamic: Changes over time, usually as a result of resolving a central conflict or facing a major crisis.
  • Static: Does not change over time; their personality does not transform or evolve.
  • Round: Has a complex personality; often portrayed as conflicted and contradictory.
  • Flat: Opposite of a round character, notable for one kind of personality trait or characteristic.
  • Stock: Conventional or stereotypical characters through repeated use in particular types of stories.

Contradistinction: Mimesis vs. Diegesis

Mimesis involves showing objects and events to the audience (ostension), while diegesis involves describing, explaining, or defining them. This distinction highlights the link between text and performance, the importance of the audience’s reaction, and the coexistence of various communicative codes in drama.

Playwright’s Tools

Playwrights convey meaning and create dramatic effects through various tools:

  • Characters’ words, dress, and behavior
  • Sets produced by the set designer
  • The audience’s cultural or encyclopedic knowledge

Sound in Drama

Sound elements in drama, including noises, the actor’s voice, and music, contribute to the overall effect. These elements encompass aspects like pitch, stress, volume, tempo, duration, and quality. Music can be used incidentally, as background, or integrated into the performance. The purpose of sound is to establish mood, characterize, suggest ideas, and compress characterization.

Adjacency Pairs

Adjacency pairs are the basic units of conversation, consisting of stimulus-response or question-answer interactions. They are composed of opening moves and responding moves.

Practical Examples

“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

The speaker urges older men to fight against death, emphasizing the importance of being alive. The poem explores themes of morality and transcendentalism, using literary devices like metaphor and alliteration.

“Ulysses” by James Joyce (Chapter 4: Calypso)

The chapter employs the stream of consciousness technique to depict the flow of thoughts and feelings through Bloom’s mind as he encounters an ad and reminisces about his past.

“The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter (The Werewolf)

The story is told from a first-person narrator’s perspective, using free indirect style to blend the narrator’s voice with the character’s thoughts and feelings.

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” by Tom Stoppard

This tragicomedy lacks a narrator and features a self-conscious and humorous tone with a minimalistic writing style.