Textual+Analysis+Tips

With many thanks to Ms Sutherland for this incredibly useful TA resource.


 * HIGHER ENGLISH TEXTUAL ANALYSIS - SOME GUIDELINES **

- strong or unusual word choice - literary techniques (alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, contrast, paradox, etc) - structure and sentence structure (repetition, enjambment, minor sentences, interrupted sentences, verse structure, etc)
 * 1) Start from OBSERVATION of TECHNIQUES:

- in words and phrases - techniques - sentence structures - ideas, points, details - verse structures
 * 1) Look for PATTERNS and for CHANGES TO PATTERNS:

- character - situation - place - event
 * 1) Start with the OBVIOUS meaning and identify such things as:

- references to people, events from news, history, religion, etc - connection to shared feeling, etc - use of double meanings ( not just puns) - possible multiple interpretations - use of a central or recurring image which you are asked to respond to
 * 1) Be aware of what the writer is asking YOU to bring to the text:

- BE SPECIFIC - QUOTE PRECISELY (just the words necessary)
 * 1) Answer the questions as far as possible by referring to techniques:

** RHETORICAL DEVICES AND FIGURES OF SPEECH **

Below is a list of stylistic devices that writer’s can use for various purposes. If you can recognise and identify some of these such recognition can alert you to what a writer is trying to achieve:


 * REPETITION: ** as the name suggests, using the same word, phrase or structure repeatedly for emphatic effect, often but not only in poetry:

// What rubbish you talk, what drivel, what brainless garbage! //


 * IRONY: ** the main meaning of irony in writing is where the writer means the opposite of what he/she actually says **(verbal irony)**:

// Isn’t the Scottish weather wonderful? //


 * Situational irony ** might be defined as where a very bad situation overlaps with a more pleasant situation, but one which fails to compensate for the bad situation. The doctor tells you you are not dying and you are so pleased that you run out into the road and get killed by a bus.


 * Dramatic irony ** is where the audience at a play/ readers of a text know more than the characters.

// You muddling, malingering malefactors! //
 * Alliteration: ** where a group of words all begin with the same sound, to generally emphatic ends:


 * OXYMORON: ** the juxtaposition of two apparently paradoxical words, with the effect of drawing the reader’s attention and making them realise the truth contained therein:

// Parting is such sweet sorrow. //

// Are you completely mad? //
 * RHETORICAL QUESTION: ** a question which either requires no answer:

or which has the purpose of allowing the writer to provide the answer:

// So what are we to do about this? Let me tell you... //


 * BATHOS: ** deliberate anticlimax, usually, but not always, for humorous effect:

// He returned from the war with medals, glory and a strong desire for a cold beer. //

// A fool trusts everyone; a wise person trusts herself alone. //
 * ANTITHESIS: ** the placing of conflicting ideas alongside each other to sharpen meaning:


 * CLICHÉ: ** overused and hackneyed expression and as such to be avoided- at the end of the day, it was a game of two halves- although the sophisticated can have some fun playing with clichés. Films such as __Naked Gun__ mock the clichés of the police thriller, for example.


 * EMOTIVE LANGUAGE: ** language designed to stir the emotions rather than the brain. Politicians are expert in the use of this - listen to Barack Obama - but there is nothing wrong with it as such.

// The clumsy moron has given away the teams’ jerseys and his name will live for ever in the lists of infamy. //

Language which is matter of fact is called **REFERENTIAL LANGUAGE**.

// The player has committed an error and the fans are somewhat annoyed. //


 * EUPHEMISM: ** a “nice” way of putting something unpalatable.

// The company is downsizing // (ie: we’re giving you the sack)

// While going to powder her nose she popped her clogs // (ie: while going to the toilet she died)

// The manager was caught with his hand in the till. // (What teel ees zees?)
 * IDIOM: ** an expression in a language which is not to be taken literally and therefore which often confuses foreigners. Often it is a cliché also, and almost always a metaphor:


 * INVECTIVE: ** very emotive language, always with the purpose of expressing utter fury about some issue. The Reverend Ian Paisley was a rich mine of invective:

// To allow the murdering scum of Sinn Feinn/IRA to sit round the democratic conference // // table... // (all delivered in a __very__ loud voice).


 * METAPHOR: ** which you all know...but just in case, an implicit comparison between two things:

// Anyone caught with fireworks will get a rocket. //

If it’s not metaphorical, it’s **LITERAL**:

// He went to the shop and got a rocket. //


 * METONYMY: ** getting complicated here - the use of an attribute or quality of something instead of that something:

// I really like Shakespeare. // (No you don’t- he’s dead. But you do like his plays.)


 * ONOMATOPOEIA: ** which you all know... but just in case, where the sound of a word or group of words mimics the meaning:

// He roared his rage... //


 * PARADOX: ** normally, two ideas which cannot be held together. In writing, often a turn of phrase suggesting two irreconcilable ideas which, on closer inspection, prove to go together. A kind of extended oxymoron:

// She was concentrating very hard on being relaxed. //


 * PERSONIFICATION: ** giving the inanimate some human qualities, such as calling ships “she”. In narrative, it is often used to create an expressionist effect, where the reader sees everything through the eyes of a character, not necessarily the narrator:

// The windows of the house stared menacingly towards their party... //   // The moon leered over the rooftops … //
 * LITOTES: ** deliberate understatement, often for ironic effect, usually involving a negative or double negative:

// I was not undrunk on the night in question... //


 * TONE: ** very important, this one: the way in which a text conveys the mood of the writer through the way in which it has been written, the counterpart of tone-of-voice in speech. The two main divisions are between formal and informal tone, but it can be friendly, hostile, humorous, sarcastic or whatever. The question is: how do you know, from the writer’s language, what the tone is?


 * SYNECDOCHE: ** the use of the part for the whole:

// We need more hands in the kitchen... //


 * ZEUGMA: ** when one verb governs two objects of different types, used usually for humorous effect:

// As an artist, he drew many fine pictures and a dole cheque each week. //   ** POETIC TECHNIQUES ** This is intended as an introduction to some of the techniques of poetry which you need to understand to be able to complete the Textual Analysis NAB of the Higher or Intermediate 2 course. Many of these techniques will or should be familiar to you from Standard Grade; others might be new. What is new is the stress that we will be putting on the practical application of these techniques: it is not just a question of identifying the techniques, you must also be able to comment on their effect, and evaluate how effective they are. Although many of the techniques detailed below also apply to other forms of literature (especially plays, some of which are written in verse), it is the case that poetry is a particularly condensed form of communication in which not only the meaning of language, but also its power of suggestion, its sound and even its visual appearance on the page can come into play. Most poems do not tell a story as such but describe a person or a scene or an incident, and attempt to relate that to some general principle or moral. ** First step ** The first thing to do when you are confronted with a poem is to try and get the general drift. If the poem is worthwhile, you will not understand everything (or even very much) at first reading. You must then ask yourself certain questions: 1) Is the poem about a person or a place or an incident, or a combination, or none of these?   2) What can you understand of what is being said? 3) Who is the narrator? (first/third person)   4) Read the poem aloud to yourself: how does it sound? 5) What is the mood (//tone// ) of the poem- serious, humorous, tragic? Does it change? How can you tell?   Now it is time to look more closely at the language of the poem.   ** Imagery **   Imagery is any attempt to create a mental picture in words. “He was tall with fair hair” is an image because it gives you a (crude) mental image of someone’s appearance.    In poetry, however, imagery is usually an attempt to compare the thing being described with something else to trigger your own recognition and make the description more vivid for you.    If the comparison is straightforward, using ‘like’ or ‘as’, it is known as **a simile.** Coleridge describes a becalmed ship thus:    // As idle as a painted ship //    // Upon a painted ocean. //    This is a straightforward comparison: the ship is so still it is like a painting, although the repetition of ‘painted’ lends emphasis to the image. Often, though, the comparison is more implicit - you have to look harder for it. An implicit comparison is known as **a metaphor:** Any expression which should not be taken **literally** is **metaphorical.** The following extract by Wilfred Owen describes soldiers returning from the trenches in World War 1: // Bent double, like old beggars under sacks // // Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, // // Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, // // And towards our distant rest began to trudge. //   // Men marched asleep; many had lost their boots, // // But limped on, blood-shod; all went lame,all blind, // // Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots, // // Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. //   Here, Owen begins with a simile- //like old beggars// - but the imagery is continued throughout in words such as //coughing, cursed, limped, lame, blind, drunk, deaf//, to create, in a **sustained metaphor**, the image of young fit men as old decrepit down-and-outs, to show what their time in the trenches has done to them. ** Word choice ** When you read a line of poetry, you should keep in mind the notion of //paradigmatic choice//: Simply, this means that every time a poet uses a word, he has chosen it from the whole supply of words which would have done in that place: in the extract above, for example, Owen uses “trudge” when walk, shamble, stagger or several other words would have done. Your job is to say “Why that word?” Was it just so that he could make a rhyme, or was there another reason? There are a number of possible reasons for choosing particular words: ** Denotation and Connotation ** As poets are trying to say a lot in a small space, they often choose words or expressions which carry ideas or associations along with them. The **denotation** of a word is the “dictionary” definition it has, its meaning. The **connotations** of a word are its associated ideas, the things that come to mind when you hear the word. For example: Ask yourself when reading poetry - what connotations does that word have? ** Ambiguity ** If a word is ambiguous it has more than one meaning or its meaning is unclear. Normally, we try to avoid this and say what we mean. However, poets often use it on purpose because they mean to say more than one thing at once. For example, Philip Larkin entitled one of his poems //‘Church Going’//. On one level, the poem is about someone visiting a church, so the title fits; however, on a deeper level, the poem is about how the Church is disappearing or losing its meaning - the word //Going// means both visiting and disappearing. Look at the phrase //blood-shod// in the Owen extract: it literally means “shoed with blood” because the soldiers had no boots and their feet were cut; but see how it also resembles the words //bloodshed,// which indicates what the men have just been through, and //bloodshot//, to suggest their appearance. ** Suggestion/ Inference ** To take things a step further, often the message or theme or gist of a poem is not stated at all, but merely suggested or implied. It is up to the reader to work out what the poem is saying above and beyond what is explicitly stated. We call this process of working out **inference,** or inferring. To see how it works, look at the poem //A Study of Reading Habits//. Inference is an extreme form of what we do whenever we read - we bring our own skill, judgement and experience to the text and combine it with that of the writer. ** Sound Effects ** Poems are meant to be read aloud. Not only the intellectual meaning, but also the sound of the work is important, therefore poets make use of several techniques to do with the sounds of words. One of the most common of these is: ** Repetition - ** You will often find repeated words or phrases in a poem. Sometimes this is just for emphasis. //In the Snack Bar// by Edwin Morgan describes the narrator taking a blind and handicapped man downstairs to the toilet: // And slowly we go down, and slowly we go down. //   Here Morgan is merely underlining how difficult it is for the man to descend the stairs, how long it takes and how slow the process is. But repetition can do more. The fuller version of Coleridge’s verse about the becalmed ship reads: // Day after day, day after day, // // We sat, nor rest nor motion, // // As idle as a painted ship, // // Upon a painted ocean. //   Here the repetition of “day after day” gives a sense of weariness as felt by the crew of the ship. Similarly, Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” creates a feeling of futility and pointlessness. ** Pronunciation - Long and Short vowels ** The vowels **a e i o u** can each be said two ways. The **Short** pronunciation is: The **Long** pronunciation is: a as in hat a as in hate e as in fed e as in here i as in bin i as in fine o as in pot o as in pole u as in fun u as in duty There are variations on this, for example aw and ow are long sounds. Generally, long sounds are used to create a slow feeling, a lack of urgency, relaxation. So “day after day, day after day” seems very slow and calm, as it would have done to those on the ship. Similarly “And slowly we go down...”. Short sounds are used to create a feeling of speed, urgency, action. ** Onomatopoeia - ** A big word for a simple concept. Some words in English sound like their meaning //- thud, bang, crash, tinkle, splash// etc. Poets can take this a step further by deliberately using groups of sounds to imitate the sound of what they are describing. Coleridge again, same poem, same voyage, different weather: // The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, // // The furrow followed free. //   // We were the first that ever burst, // // Into that silent sea. //  ** Alliteration ** - Here, all the //f// and //s// sounds actually create the sound of the sea foaming as the ship crashes through the waves. Similarly, the last two lines of the extract from Owen: ...deaf even to the hoot//s// Of ga//s-sh// ells dropping //s// oftly behind. The //s// sounds here mimic the hissing of the poison gas. As you know, rhyme is when words at the end of a line of poetry finish with similar or identical sounds. In previous centuries, nearly all poetry rhymed according to certain patterns. In the twentieth century, rhyme is less, but still, common. The use of rhyme has historical origins which we need not go into here. However, knowing how to spot a “rhyme scheme” and also to detect any variations in it can alert you to what the poet is trying to do. ** Exercise ** Look at “Long Distance” by Tony Harrison. Though my mother was already two years deadDad kept her slippers warming by the gas,put hot water bottles her side of the bedand still went to renew her transport pass.You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.He'd put you off an hour to give him time to clear away her things and look alone as though his still raw love were such a crime.He couldn't risk my blight of disbeliefthough sure that very soon he'd hear her keyscrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.I believe life ends with death, and that is all.You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,in my new black leather phone book there's your name and the disconnected number I still call.
 * “Rolls-Royce” denotes a large car, but its connotations are things like luxury, film stars, royalty, money, bad taste and so on.
 * “Massage parlour” denotes a place where you can get a massage; its connotations are of prostitution, sleaze, gangsters, etc.
 * When getting my nose in a bookCured most things short of school,It was worth ruining my eyesTo know I could still keep cool,And deal out the old right hookTo dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs,Evil was just my lark:Me and my coat and fangsHad ripping times in the dark.The women I clubbed with sex!I broke them up like meringues. Don't read much now: the dudeWho lets the girl down beforeThe hero arrives, the chapWho's yellow and keeps the storeSeem far too familiar. Get stewed:Books are a load of crap. || It is abundantly clear that the poem's speaker is **__not__** the poet himself. No man who was a professional librarian throughout his life and who turned down the position of Poet Laureate of England because of failing health would make the statement that concludes the poem: "Books are a load of crap." The poet neatly sums up his speaker's personality - stanza by stanza - through the kinds of books he enjoys during boyhood, young manhood, and maturity. In boyhood he enjoyed cartoon characters / comic book super heroes; in young manhood he read mainly horror stories, murder mysteries and books with graphic sex; in maturity he prefers to “Get stewed” than read books! ||
 * Rhyme **

How does the rhyme scheme draw your attention to the poet’s purpose? ** How to annotate a rhyme scheme. **  Give the first line of the poem the letter A.    Any later line which rhymes with line 1 should also be given letter A.    Give the second line the letter B (unless it rhymes with line 1). Any later line which rhymes with line 2 should be given the letter B, etc. ** Examples. ** ** Tam O’Shanter ** When chapman billies leave the street A   And drouthy neibours neibours meet A    As market days are wearing late B    And folk begin to tak the gate B   ** Miss Gee ** Let me tell you a little story A   About Miss Edith Gee B    She lived in Clevedon Terrace C    At number 83 B   ** The Walrus and the Carpenter ** The sun was shining on the sea A   Shining with all his might B    He did his very best to make C    The billows smooth and bright B    And this was odd because it was D    The middle of the night B   ** Half- rhyme (or pararhyme). **  Half rhyme is where there is some sound resemblance between words, but not a full rhyme. In full rhyme, the vowel sound and final consonant sound (if there is one) are normally the same, but the initial consonants are different. For example: **mask** and **task** are full rhymes. With half rhymes, the consonants are often nearly the same, but the vowel sounds are different: **mask** and **musk** are half-rhymes. For some reason, half-rhymes are almost always used to denote depression, disillusionment, despair. They are particularly effective when the rest of the poem has full rhyme or none at all. Look at the following poem from World War I by Wilfred Owen: sketch out the rhyme scheme and comment on the tone. ** Futility ** // Move him into the sun,- // // Gently its touch awoke him once, // // At home, whispering of fields unsown. //   // Always it woke him, even in France, // // Until this morning and this snow. //   // If anything might rouse him now // // The kind old sun will know. //   // Think how it wakes the seeds,- // // Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. //   // Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides, // // Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir? //   // - O what made fatuous sunbeams toil // // To break earth’s sleep at all? //   This next poem, also from World War 1, needs some knowledge of the story from the Bible of Abraham and Isaac. Comment on the rhyme scheme here. ** The Parable of the Old Man and the Young. **   // So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went // // And took the fire with him and a knife. //   // And as they sojourned both of them together, // // Isaac the first born spake and said, My Father, // // Behold the preparations, fire and iron, // // But where the lamb for this burnt offering? //   // Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps, // // And builded parapets and trenches there, // // And stretched forth the knife to slay his son. //   // When lo! an angel called him out of heaven, // // Saying, lay not thy hand upon the lad, // // Neither do anything to him. Behold, // // A ram caught in a thicket by its horns; // // Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. //   // But the old man would not so, but slew his son, // // And half the seed of Europe, one by one. //  ** Rhythm and Metre ** Rhythm is present in all spoken language: if we did not speak with rhythm, we would sound like “interactive” computers. As well as polysyllabic words having stressed and unstressed syllables, sentences have stresses also, in order to point up meaning. What is the difference between the following: **I** am going to London. I **am** going to London. I am going to **London**. Rhythm in poetry refers to the sound of the lines: quick or slow, smooth or jerky. The rhythm can be achieved by various means: ** 1. Punctuation - ** A lot of punctuation, especially in the middle of lines, slows things down, makes the lines sound jerky. Less or no punctuation speeds up the sound of lines. Remember **Dulce et Decorum** **est** again: // Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, // // Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge... //   In the following stanza, there is a gas attack, and panic ensues: // Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, // // But someone still was yelling out and stumbling // // And floundering like a man in fire or lime... //   The lack of punctuation in the second segment speeds up the whole sound, just as the soldiers speeded up. ** 2. Word choice - ** Short vowelled words (see back) sound quick; long vowelled words sound slow. Two syllable words, for some reason, sound much sharper than three syllable words. Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” sounds infinitely wearying and despairing. If he had said “Tonight and tonight and tonight” it wouldn’t have been the same at all. ** 3. Enjambment - ** This is defined as “the running on of a sentence from one line of verse to another” but it’s actually more than that. Sentences run from one line to another all the time. Enjambment is more when a closely related segment of a sentence runs into another line. ** Metre ** Metre is a poetic term meaning that rhythm has been used in a regular way, according to some pattern. There are a wide variety of metres. Here is “A Study of Reading Habits” again. When **get**ting my **nose** in a **book** - 3 stresses Cured **most** things **short** of **school**- 3 stresses It was **worth** **ruin**ing my **eyes** - 3 stresses To **know** I could **still** keep **cool** - 3 stresses The pattern here is quite loose: the stresses are not regular on syllables. However, the number of stresses or beats to the line is 3 on each occasion. An iamb is a pair of syllables, the first one unstresses, the second stressed. It is a very common means of constructing poetry, giving a regular beat to verse. Here is one example: If **sev**en **maids** with **sev**en **mops** - 4 stresses Swept **it** for **half** a **year** - 3 stresses Do **you** sup**pose**, the **wal**rus **said** - 4 stresses That **they** could **get** it **clear**? - 3 stresses Lines 1 and 3 are called **iambic tetrameter** (tetra- means four). Lines 2 and 4 are called **iambic trimeter** (tri- means three). Shakespeare usually writes in **iambic pentameter** (penta- means five). Shall **I** com**pare** thee **to** a **sum**mer’s **day** Thou **art** more **lov**ely and **more** **tem**perate Rough **winds** do **sha**ke the **dar**ling **buds** of **May**...    Iambic pentameter is said to be popular because it imitates the sound of the human heartbeat. If Shakespeare wants to draw your attention to something important, his verse will skip a beat. ** Mood and Tone ** These two terms are now just about interchangeable. They mean the emotional state of a piece of poetry, what the poet was feeling, what we are meant to feel when we read the poem. Here are two contrasting lines: // Joy it was on that morn to be alive! //    and // Dark, dark, dark, we all go into the dark. //   Contrasting emotions, easy to spot. Two more difficult ones from WW1 again: ** In Flanders Fields ** // In Flanders fields the poppies blow // // Between the crosses row on row // // That mark our place; and in the sky // // The larks, still bravely singing, fly // // Scarce heard amid the guns below. //   // We are the dead. Short days ago // // We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, // // Loved and were loved, and now we lie // // In Flanders fields. //   // Take up our quarrel with the foe: // // To you from failing hands we throw // // The torch... //   ** Does it matter? **   // Does it matter?- losing your legs... //   // For people will always be kind, // // And you need not show that you mind // // When the others come in after hunting // // To gobble their muffins and eggs. //   // Does it matter? - losing your sight?... //   // There’s such splendid work for the blind; // // And people will always be kind, // // As you sit on the terrace remembering // // And turning your face to the light. //   // Do they matter?- those dreams from the pit?... //   // You can drink and forget and be glad, // // And people won’t say that you’re mad; // // For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country // // And no-one will worry a bit. //   Same subject matter - casualties of war - very different attitude. What is the attitude of each? How is tone and mood achieved?
 * SYLLABLES, STRESS AND RHYTHM **

A **syllable** is one separate sound of speech. Cat is a one-syllable word because it is only one sound. Begin is a two-syllable word: be-gin Acrobat is a three-syllable word: ac-ro-bat Electrical is a four-syllable word: e-lec-tric-al ...and so on.

// Exercise 1 // How many syllables do the following words have: 1. thorough 2. apache 3. kangaroo 4. rhinoceros 5. rhythmical 6. disciplinarian 7. gardener 8. nevertheless 9. borough 10. mathematician 11. polyphiloprogenitive.

** EVENTUAL ** If you say this to yourself, you will realize that the syllable **-VEN-** is said louder than the other syllables. It is the stressed syllable in the word. To show this, you could write the word as
 * STRESS - ** If you have ever heard a voice synthesizer, you will know what people would sound like if they did not use stress- their voices would be flat and monotonous. All people when talking stress syllables and words- that is, they say some louder than others. Take for example the word

** EVENTUAL **

// Exercise 2 // Write these words out, marking the stressed syllable 1. gardener 2. beautician 3. continent 4. continental 5. desert 6. dessert 7. television 8. crocodile 9. library 10. librarian 11. avoid 12. upset (noun) 13. upset (verb) ** Note ** In the Close Reading paper, there are three types of question: ** Understanding ** (U): what is being said. ** Analysis ** (A): how it is said. ** Evaluation ** (E): how well it is said, or what it adds to the effect of the piece (in other words, there is an element of judgement required – but this judgement should be based on what you have identified in the text). Most of the points detailed above are concerned with analysis; however, once you have analysed a piece of writing, you are obviously in a much better position to evaluate it.