Reading Literature: Points to Look for, Questions to Answer
- Always read with a pen, pencil, or highlighter in your hand; ideally, have a notebook at your side to take notes. Mark up the text. Keep a list of “threads,” including interesting points or contradictions, striking scenes, repeated themes or images, or questions that you have.
- Look up words you don’t know and write the definition in the margin or in a notebook so you don’t forget.
- Read some of the text aloud. Try to hear the rhythms of the piece. I always do this, but it is especially helpful if a passage is confusing. Speaking it will help you make sense of it because you’ll have to make decisions about how the punctuation works, where to pause, and what to emphasize.
- Notice both what the text does and what it doesn't do (but might have done).
- As you read, look for:
a)Use of allusion (to classical mythology, history, literature, art...)
b)Use of refrain, repetition, and revision (repetition with a difference: why?)
c)Development of major images and image patterns
d)Frequent use of metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, or any other narrative device
e)Changes in voice, mood, verb tense, tone
f)Changes in meter or rhyme scheme in poems or changes in rhythm or length of sentences in prose
g)Slippages, contradictions, evasions in the language or logic of the text
- Questions to answer about any text:
a)How does the text “get to” its readers (multiple narrators, stories-within-stories, suspense, etc)?
b)Is the narrator 1st or 3rd person (or 2nd person—quite rare)? Is there more than one narrator?
c)Is the narrator objective, limited, omniscient?
d)Is the narrator reliable or deceived, confused, misled, deceptive?
e)Where and how does the climax of the story, essay, biographical narrative, or poem occur?
f)To what end does the author use the narrative devices he/she employs?
g)How does this text fit with what you know about the author's personal history and the history of her/his work?
h)Does the text match or break with the common knowledge or beliefs of its culture?
i)How does the text fit in the literary era in which it was written? Is this text typical or atypical of its time?
j)Do I like this reading? Based on all of the qualities I’ve noticed, how can I explain why I like or do not like it?
When you read, try to make the author's choices visible. Ask yourself: How does this quality that I've noticed in the text function? What does this quality mean? What effect does it have?
Adapted from material by Cheryl Smith