Writing Essays about Literature: A Guide and Style Sheet

Strategies for Interpreting Literature

  • Why Do People Read Literature?

    • For pleasure.
    • For meaning.
    • Pleasure and meaning are related; part of the pleasure of reading comes from the meanings it gives us.

  • What Is Meaning?

    • Understanding the words and sentences of the text.
    • Ideas that emerge from connections among the larger parts of the work.
    • Connecting the work to the world outside.
    • Themes are the ideas works express about “reality”.
    • Themes can sometimes be stated simply and directly, or indirectly.

  • What Is Interpretation?

    • The process of examining the details of works of literature to make sense of them.

  • How Do We Interpret?

    • Get the facts straight.
    • Connect the work with yourself.
    • Develop hypotheses as you read.
    • Write as you read.
    • Reread the work.
    • Talk back to the work.
    • Learn from the interpretations of others.
    • Analyze works of literature.

What Is Literature?

  • Older Definitions:

    • Critics once thought they knew what literature was based on properties experts could identify (imagery, metaphor, etc.)
    • The New Critics were mostly male and interested in Western literature and culture.
    • Excluded were works by females, persons of color, and persons who lived outside Europe.

  • Recent Definitions:

    • Literature is a social construct created by society.

  • Literature Is Language

    • The medium of literature.
    • Denotation is the explicit referent of a word.
    • Connotation is the meaning that words have in addition to their explicit referents.
    • Defamiliarization (making strange) is the technique of making objects unfamiliar.

  • Questions:

    • How does an author use language to signal ideas?
    • What seems significant about the author’s choice of words (diction), ways of constructing sentences (syntax), word sounds, repetitions of key words, archaisms of diction or syntax?
    • Does an author’s use of language, prose, or poetic style seem unique?

  • Literature Is Fictional

    • Literature can be fictional in two ways.
      • Authors make up some or all of the material.
      • Through artistic control, the writer exercises over the work.

  • Literature Is True

    • Even though literature is fictional, it has the capacity to be true by:
      • Factual accuracy.
      • Directly Stated Ideas.
      • Indirectly stated ideas.
      • Typical characters and probable actions.
      • Allegory.
      • Literature as expression.
      • Literature as experiential.

  • Literature Is Aesthetic

    • Literature is aesthetic; it gives pleasure.
    • The pleasure of literature rests in the way authors use literary conventions, such as metaphor, plot, symbolism, irony, suspense, and poetic language.
    • This order isn't typical of real life.

  • Literature Is Intertextual

    • Literature relates to other works of literature.
    • It incorporates established literary conventions.
    • It belongs to at least one genre of literature

Interpreting Fiction

  • Theme

    • Guidelines for stating and describing themes:
      • Subject and theme.
      • Reference to reality outside the work.
      • Theme as dilemma.
      • Multiple themes.
      • A lack of themes.
      • A work’s themes vs. our values.
      • Themes and the author.

  • Point of View

    • Point of view is the narrator’s relationship to the world of the work; another term that some critics prefer is perspective.
      • Third-person omniscient point of view.
      • Third-person limited point of view.
      • Third-person objective (dramatic) point of view.
      • First-person point of view.
    • Tone.
    • Multiple points of view.
    • Reliability of narrators is to be doubted.
    • Narratee: An audience for the narrative.

  • Plot

    • Plot is an arrangement of events linked by cause and effect.
    • Plot presents events that engage readers emotionally.
    • Story: the arrangement of events in chronological order.
    • Freytag pyramid:
      • Stable situation.
      • Unstable situation.
      • Exposition.
      • Rising action.
      • Climax.
      • Falling action (dénouement).
      • Casually related events.
    • External and internal conflict.
    • Protagonist and antagonist.
    • Embedded stories and frame stories.
    • Summary narration and scenic narration.

  • Characterization

    • Flat and round characters
    • Static and dynamic characters.
    • Direct and indirect revelation.

Specialized Approaches to Interpreting Literature

  • Literary Criticism

    • Sites of Meaning.
    • Literary Theory.

  • Literary Theory involves different ways to derive meaning:

    • The Work.
    • The Author.
    • The Reader.
    • All of Reality.

  • The Work

    • Theorists analyze the literary language and form of works.
    • Anglo-American Criticism. is the close reading of the details of the work
    • Structuralism.
    • Archetypal Criticism
    • Poststructuralism.

  • The Author

    • Historical and Biographical Criticism.
    • New Historicist Criticism.

  • The Reader

    • Interested in how readers create meaning
    • European Reader-Response Criticism.
    • American Reader-Response Theory.

  • All of Reality

    • Connections to reality.
    • Psychological Criticism
    • Marxist Criticism
    • Feminist and Gender Criticism

Writing about Literature

  • The Essay

    • Brevity
    • Formality
    • Intended for a Serious Audience
    • Persuasive
    • Argumentative

  • The Writing Process

    • Writing the first draft
      • Thesis
      • Determine your topic
      • Gathering Evidence
      • Writing the First Draft
    • Editing the Final draft
      *Revisions and editing throughout the entire Process
    • Audience
    • Rhetoric
      *Use sources correctly (primary, secondary, etc)