Close Reading Archive

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2024-12-21 09:30:04

“critics who have written about [The Awkward Age] seem to have found it not worth the extremely close and alert reading it demands”

“Only lately, and thanks mainly to the influence of Mr. I. A. Richards, has anyone tried again to teach poetry as Bowyer seems to have taught Shakespeare and Milton”

“careful analysis of the texts themselves by a class under the guidance of the teacher results in close reading and sober judgment”

“the potentially valuable emphasis on ‘close reading’ often has been nullified also by the creation of routine formulae for analysis”

“the current reactions against ‘close’ criticism . . . often give evidence that these mechanical versions have been equated with the whole approach”

“a technique of close reading unrelated to a genuine sensitivity to literary value can in itself be of no more significance than a skill in doing crossword puzzles”

“Today the school of New Critics seems to have passed into history, but their methods of close reading can be discerned not far below the surface of most serious analysis of poetry”

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