Close reading is like dating. Just when you think you’ve nailed the technique, you find out you’ve been doing it wrong, oh so wrong, upside down, and you have to simply scratch all you’ve learnt and start over. But there’s no rule book. And everyone has different opinions. No two people do it the same and you’re told “every way to approach this is right” but that can’t be true, because your current approach seems to end poorly each time.
The first myth you encounter about close reading in an educational context is the adage, “there are no wrong answers”. There certainly are, and if you study English, a mark will tell you as such.
The need to close read itself is subject to debate. Devoting time and space in an essay to line-by-line analysis has its roots in New Criticism theory, which foregrounds the author’s intention as key to unlocking an understanding of the text. However, this need not be the case. Close reading enables reader self-insertion, and is the process by which we can find new interpretations. Close reading is therefore a vital methodology when dissecting a text, regardless of the analyst’s views on Death of the Author.
During my English degree, I’ve received very little instruction on how to actually close-read, often relying on rudimentary high-school techniques. In conversation with other students, it’s clear this experience is universal. When I have been taught close-reading methodology, it is usually during one-on-one sessions with tutors or supervisors, sometimes on unpaid time. My understanding of close-reading underwent a seismic shift during my Honours year, where my supervisor could focus on my writing and point out just how misguided my approach had been.
A quick internet search for guides to close reading reveals few resources of use: HSC advice from tutoring websites encourages ‘technique-mining’, often leading students to hallucinate the existence of extremely obscure techniques.
This is an issue that the University of Sydney is currently addressing to some degree. The Department and the English Society arrange sessions on essay-writing methodology, such as close-reading and comparative essay structures. But, these sessions are often poorly attended due to a lack of awareness. In 2022, the first-year course “Idea of the Classic” was made compulsory: this class famously involves three short “close-reading tasks” as part of its assessment structure.
However, many students bemoan this “close-reading task”, as is made clear in this Honi article, likely because directions on how to close-read are puzzling. Second year English student Angus McGregor shares that “in the tutorial setting, close-reading skills are almost never discussed. I have never had a tutor model close reading or go over a passage in formal detail. Yes, models of analysis exist in lectures but it’s very hard to see that translate into an essay.”
Second year English student Imogen Sabey agreed: “I worked out what my tutors had been looking for through trial and error rather than explicit instruction. Some of my peers had done a lot more close reading in high school because they had different curriculums, but the instruction I received in my first semester was lacklustre at best.”
Surprising ways to close-read
Under the tutelage of supervisors and peers far cleverer than me, I have found that the entryway into better close-readings is the trapdoor — it’s the approach that takes you by surprise.
Reading closely by zooming out: pattern-seeking
As the name suggests, close-reading involves analysis of a text at a granular level. Students often take a passage line-by-line, forgetting the words which precede the phrase under scrutiny. However, a pattern-seeking approach can provide more evidence for a convincing argument. Arguments about a passage’s consistent use of a certain kind of connotation, or rhetoric, or even type of word or tense, can power bigger claims about a text. So, zooming out and searching for repeats, reproductions and reappearances may uncover interesting insights. When you find multiple patterns, stitch them together to make a larger tapestry, and consider how each thread speaks to each other.
Just as you might look for patterns, it helps to note when patterns are broken and think about how this destabilises meaning or message.
But also: take the sentence to the operating table
As a lazy violin-player, teenaged-me would skip trills and quavers to give my fast-moving fingers a rest. My violin teacher condemned this act of musical treachery, taking on a New Criticism approach: “Each of those notes were chosen for a reason! You must play each one!” Though my violin career ended unceremoniously at 15, this rings true for words and sentences. In Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, she speaks to a poem’s design, fashioned by “language used in the way it is used”. Ask yourself, why this word and not another? How would a synonym as substitute disrupt the sentence’s harmonies? When dissecting the sentence, consider the role each word plays in theatres of tone, sound, and meaning.
Get mechanical: what’s the technique of the technique?
After a technique-heavy high school diet, identifying and labelling techniques, particularly the common staples such as metaphor, alliteration and allusion, becomes as autonomic as swallowing. Again, zooming out can be helpful: consider the point of these techniques, why the author may have chosen this technique over another, and most importantly, examine the machinery of the technique itself. Break techniques down to their first principles: a simile compares two things by suggesting they are alike, whereas a metaphor treats them as the same. Consider how the mechanical differences between techniques sculpt meaning.
Ultimately, close-reading is about finding an approach that works for you, but adages such as these are not helpful when dealt out as the sole advice to puzzled students. Lean on direct advice from tutors and supervisors and remember that asking the question, “Wait, how do we actually close-read?” makes you a member of a larger crowd than you might presume.
With thanks to Eamonn Murphy for our helpful conversation on close-reading.
