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Literary Analysis and Paragraph Structures - Spring 2018

This document provides guidance on literary analysis and paragraph structure. It explains that literary analysis involves close reading of a text to develop an interpretation. Close reading focuses on important passages, sentences, or phrases, breaking them down to understand both literal meaning and how language contributes to meaning. Literary elements like structure, language devices, and themes should be considered. Sample paragraph structures are outlined to incorporate textual analysis, quotations, explanation, and conclusions that relate back to the overall argument.

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171 views

Literary Analysis and Paragraph Structures - Spring 2018

This document provides guidance on literary analysis and paragraph structure. It explains that literary analysis involves close reading of a text to develop an interpretation. Close reading focuses on important passages, sentences, or phrases, breaking them down to understand both literal meaning and how language contributes to meaning. Literary elements like structure, language devices, and themes should be considered. Sample paragraph structures are outlined to incorporate textual analysis, quotations, explanation, and conclusions that relate back to the overall argument.

Uploaded by

Whimsical Lopsidedchick Seeking Ernesto
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Professor Donna Paparella


Literary Analysis and Paragraph Structures

LITERARY ANALYSIS / CLOSE READING (also see the “close reading” handout):
The goal of a literary analysis is to come to your own interpretation of a literary text. This is the
fun part. “Close reading” is a technique that helps you do this by focusing in on a small part of
the text in the context of the text as a whole (and perhaps through various other lenses as well).
Here are things to do when performing a literary analysis:
Pick an important passage, sentence, or even a phrase.
Ask yourself why it is important and why you picked it.
Break it down sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word by word.
We are focusing on two things:
 What is being said (what is the literal meaning?)
 How it is being said (which contributes to the meaning beyond the literal interpretation)
Consider form and structure (for example: a soliloquy that’s written as an internal dialogue, a
novel that’s subtitled an “autobiography,” a sonnet)
Consider language:
 literary devices such as metaphor, imagery, allusion
 word choices
 word arrangement (syntax)
 punctuation
 repetition
 tone and texture
Consider other literary elements such as;
 character
 plot
 point of view
 voice
In a drama, consider how a scene could be staged.
Ask yourself: how do these particular literary choices affect your responses as a reader? (To
understand this question, it may be useful to think about what other choices the author may have
made.) Consider connections to other parts of the text. You want to be pointing out things that
are not self-evident and making new points about them. Go deep!

PARAGRAPH STRUCTURES:
Your paragraphs should each have their own main idea (topic sentence) that relates to your larger
argument, quotation(s) from the texts we are working with, explanation, analysis, and their own
specific conclusion that comes out of the analytical work you did in the paragraph that relates
back to your topic sentence as well as to your overall argument. In a rough draft, you may not
know what your main idea is—this is fine—begin with the textual analysis and you will figure it
out.

There are various ways to write paragraphs, but as a literary critic, you will be working with the
text/s very closely. On the following page are two paragraph structures that will help you do that
(and that you will find in many argument sources, i.e., works of literary criticism).
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Here is a sample paragraph structure using one text:


 Begin the paragraph with your own words. The first – or an early – sentence should be
your topic sentence: state your claim, your focus, your point, what you are trying to
prove. Your topic sentence provides the focus for your paragraph as well as relates to
your overall argument.
 Introduce quotation, indicating context and speaker.
 Give quotation.
 Cite quotation in parentheses (using MLA format).
 Analyze/closely read the quotation.
 Draw a conclusion that relates back to your topic sentence (which is different than
restating your topic sentence).

Here is a sample paragraph structure connecting two quotations (from the same or different
texts):
 Begin the paragraph with your topic sentence: state your claim, your focus, your point,
what you are trying to prove.
 Introduce the first quotation, indicating context and speaker.
 Give the first quotation.
 Cite quotation in parentheses.
 Explain and analyze/closely read the quotation
 Give some sort of transition to the next quotation, providing a clue to the connection you
are building. Connections can be made based on:
o Similarity/Agreement
o Difference/Contrast
o Frame and Case (an idea in a critical or theoretical work and an example of that
idea)
o Alternative explanation
 Give the second quotation.
 Cite it in parentheses.
 Analyze it and explain in a specific way how the second quotation connects to the first
one. Even if you think it is obvious, it is not.
 Draw a conclusion from the connection that relates back to your topic sentence (which is
different than restating your topic sentence).

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