BG Writing English

8/2/2019 BG Writing English

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arvardollege Writing Center

Harvard College

Writing Program

Faculty o Arts and Sciences

Harvard University

WrITINg CeNTer BrIeF gUIde SerIeS

A Brie Guide to Writingthe English Paper

The Challenges of Writing About EnglishLiterature

Writing begins with the act of reading. While this state-

ment is true or most college papers, strong English paperstend to be the product o highly attentive reading (and re-

reading). When your instructors ask you to do a close read-

ing, they are asking you to read not only or content, but

also or structures and patterns. When you perorm a close

reading, then, you observe how orm and content interact.

In some cases, orm reinorces content: or example, in John

Donnes Holy Sonnet 14, where the speaker invites Gods

orce to break, blow, burn and make [him] new. Here,

the stressed monosyllables o the verbs break, blow and

burn evoke aurally the orce that the speaker invites rom

God. In other cases, orm raises questions about content: or

example, a repeated denial o guilt will likely raise questions

about the speakers proessed innocence.

When you close read, take an inductive approach. Start by

observing particular details in the text, such as a repeated im-

age or word, an unexpected development, or even a contra-

diction. Oten, a detailsuch as a repeated imagecan help

you to identiy a question about the text that warrants urther

examination. So annotate details that strike you as you

read. Some o those details will eventually help you to work

towards a thesis. And dont worry i a detail seems trivial. I

you can make a case about how an apparently trivial detail

reveals something signicant about the text, then your paperwill have a thought-provoking thesis to argue.

Common Types of English PapersMany assignments will ask you to analyze a single text.

Others, however, will ask you to read two or more texts in

relation to each other, or to consider a text in light o claims

made by other scholars and critics. For most assignments,

close reading will be central to your paper.

While some assignment guidelines will suggest topics and

spell out expectations in detail, others will oer little more

than a page limit. Approaching the writing process in the

absence o assigned topics can be daunting, but remember

that you have resources: in section, you will probably have

encountered some examples o close reading; in lecture, you

will have encountered some o the courses central questions

and claims. The paper is a chance or you to extend a claim

oered in lecture, or to analyze a passage neglected in lecture

In either case, your analysis should do more than recapitulateclaims aired in lecture and section.

Because dierent instructors have dierent goals or an as-

signment, you should always ask your proessor or TF i you

have questions. These general guidelines should apply in most

cases:

A close reading o a single text: Depending on the

length o the text, you will need to be more or less selec-

tive about what you choose to consider. In the case o a

sonnet, you will probably have enough room to analyze

the text more thoroughly than you would in the case o a

novel, or example, though even here you will probably

not analyze every single detail. By contrast, in the case

o a novel, you might analyze a repeated scene, image, or

object (or example, scenes o train travel, images o decay

or objects such as or typewriters). Alternately, you might


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2 analyze a perplexing scene (such as a novels ending, albeit

probably in relation to an earlier moment in the novel).

But even when analyzing shorter works, you will need

to be selective. Although you might notice numerous

interesting details as you read, not all o those details will

help you to organize a ocused argument about the text.

For example, i you are ocusing on depictions o sensory

experience in Keats Ode to a Nightingale, you prob-

ably do not need to analyze the image o a homeless Ruth

in stanza 7, unless this image helps you to develop your

case about sensory experience in the poem.

A theoretically-inormed close reading. In some

courses, you will be asked to analyze a poem, a play, or a

novel by using a critical theory (psychoanalytic, postcolo-

nial, gender, etc). For example, you might use Kristevas

theory o abjection to analyze mother-daughter relations

in Toni Morrisons novel Beloved. Critical theories pro-

vide ocus or your analysis; i abjection is the guiding

concept or your paper, you should ocus on the scenes in

the novel that are most relevant to the concept.

A historically-inormed close reading. In courses

with a historicist orientation, you might use less sel-con-

sciously literary documents, such as newspapers or devo-

tional manuals, to develop your analysis o a literary work.

For example, to analyze how Robinson Crusoe makes

sense o his island experiences, you might use Puritan

tracts that narrate events in terms o how God organizes

them. The tracts could help you to show not only how

Robinson Crusoedraws on Puritan narrative conventions,

but alsomore signicantlyhow the novel revises those

conventions.

A comparison o two texts When analyzing two

texts, you might look or unexpected contrasts between

apparently similar texts, or unexpected similarities between

apparently dissimilar texts, or or how one text revises or

transorms the other. Keep in mind that not all o the

similarities, dierences, and transormations you identiy

will be relevant to an argument about the relationship

between the two texts. As you work towards a thesis, you

will need to decide which o those similarities, dier-

ences, or transormations to ocus on. Moreover, unless

instructed otherwise, you do not need to allot equal space

to each text (unless this 50/50 allocation serves your thesis

well, o course). Oten you will nd that one text helps to

develop your analysis o another text. For example, you

might analyze the transormation o Ariels song rom The

Tempestin T. S. Eliots poem, The Waste Land. Insoar as

this analysis is interested in the aterlie o Ariels song in a

later poem, you would likely allot more space to analyzing

allusions to Ariels song in The Waste Land(ater initially

establishing the songs signicance in Shakespeares play,

o course).

A response paper A response paper is a great oppor-

tunity to practice your close reading skills without having

to develop an entire argument. In most cases, a solid ap-

proach is to select a rich passage that rewards analysis (or

example, one that depicts an important scene or a recur-

ring image) and close read it. While response papers are afexible genre, they are not invitations or impressionistic

accounts o whether you liked the work or a particular

character. Instead, you might use your close reading to

raise a question about the textto open up urther inves-

tigation, rather than to supply a solution.

A research paper. In most cases, you will receive

guidance rom the proessor on the scope o the research

paper. It is likely that you will be expected to consult

sources other than the assigned readings. Hollis is your

best bet or book titles, and the MLA bibliography (avail-

able through e-resources) or articles. When readingarticles, make sure that they have been peer reviewed; you

might also ask your TF to recommend reputable journals

in the eld.

When analyzing two texts, you might look or unexpected contrasts

between apparently similar texts, or unexpected similarities between

apparently dissimilar texts, or or how one text revises or transorms

the other. Keep in mind that not all o the similarities, dierences, and

transormations you identiy will be relevant to an argument about the

relationship between the two texts.


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3 Taking the First Steps: Close ReadingTowards a Thesis

Below are two examples o how close reading can help you

work towards ormulating a thesis or your paper. While

neither is a complete recipe or an English paper, both should

give you some idea o the kinds o textual eatures close read-

ers look or and the kinds o questions they ask.

Example #1: Close Reading Prose

Lets say that you decide to write on Jean-Jacques Rous-

seaus autobiography, Conessions. Rousseaus autobiography

is notably the work o a novelist, and it has been read as a

novel by numerous scholars o literature. Because Rousseaus

Conessions is a long work, your analysis will need to be selec-

tive. One way to narrow your ocus is to look at a pattern

o repetition: a repeated scene (say, a thet), a repeated object

(say, a book), or a repeated word (say, heart). I a scene

or an object is depicted repeatedly, it is probably important

or the book as a whole. In most cases, it will be depicted indierent ways that complicate or confict with each other. A

consideration o this kind o riction could trigger a thought-

provoking thesis. Heres one way you might break down the

process o reading towards a thesis:

1) Identiy a pattern o repetition. Lets take the

example o the word heart. Rousseau uses this word

compulsively. From page one, heart seems to designate

Rousseaus most authentic and sincere sel; it also seems to

serve as a guarantor o truth, or instance when Rous-

seau asserts that his heart is content with the accuracy

o the autobiographical stories he has recounted. But it

is worth wondering whether a word used as requently as

heart might have some other, less obvious meanings. As

mentioned, it is rare in a literary work or a charged, oten

repeated word to mean exactly the same thing every time.

As you read Rousseaus Conessions, mark all the instances

o the word heart. Once you have nished the book,

you can then proceed to

2) Make a list o passages in which the word

heart appears. This should be a list not just o page

numbers but o quotations. With a couple o pages o

hits or the word heart, you will have a body o data

that you can begin to analyze.

3) Identiy the dierent meanings o the word

heart and analyze their relationships. How

does heart seem to unction primarily, according to

Rousseau? And what other unctions and capacities doesit have in the text? You might notice that Rousseaus

heart is very susceptible to antasies: when he antasizes

about being a soldier, his heart swelled at this noble

idea; elsewhere, he admits that love o the marvelous

comes naturally to the human heart. In these cases, the

heart seems to oster illusionsquite a contrast to the pri-

mary denition o the heart as a sincere guarantor o truth

This tension is worth identiying and analyzing. I Rous-

seaus autobiography is invested in a heart-based model

o the sel, what are some o this investments unexpected

consequences or how the autobiography constructs a

selconsequences which Rousseau himsel doesntacknowledge? As you notice relationships between dier-

ent meanings, ask questions about them. The meaning o

the word heart, however obvious it might be to you in

day-to-day conversation, is not obvious in Rousseaus au-

tobiography. Use the less obvious meanings and unctions

to interrogate the more obvious meanings and unctions.

4) Select a riction-rich relationship to ocus

on in your thesis. Some o the meanings o heart

will seem more unexpected than others. In your paper,

you need not account orevery singleusage o the word

heart; select the examples that are most in tension withthe primary meaning o heart as the seat o an authentic

sel and a guarantor o truth. With the above data, you ar

in a position to make an argument about how a sel gets

constructed in Rousseaus work and what the unacknowl-

edged limitations o that construction are. So you might

argue the ollowing: From the outset, Rousseaus auto-

biography represents the heart as the seat o Rousseaus

most authentic and truthul sel. However, as Rousseaus

personal narrative develops, the heart assumes other unc-

tions: it uels personal antasies and superstitions, or ex-

ample. The confict between Rousseaus early, dominant

characterization o the heart and its later more delusionalcapacities suggests that the concept o an authentic sel is

more volatile, more unreliable, than Rousseau admits. In-

deed, insoar as a sels authenticity rides on the subjective

emotions o the heart, authenticity appears to be a rather

unreliable guarantor o truth. I Rousseaus autobiogra-

phy ormulates a model o the authentic, eeling sel that

remains amiliar today, it ultimately puts pressure on that

model.

I a scene or an object is depicted

repeatedly, it is probablyimportant or the book as a

whole. In most cases, it will be

depicted in dierent ways that

will complicate or confict with

each other.


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4 Notice that this thesis does not judge Rousseau as a human

being. Instead, it makes a claim about how a sel is construct-

ed in a particular worka work that occupies a particular

historical moment when selves have a particular vocabulary

available to them. Ultimately, you are analyzing a piece

o language and not a human being. Consequently, you

do not need either to judge or to justiy Rousseau. Write

about Rousseaus autobiography as you might write about a

rst-person ctional narrative (which, like Rousseau, has a

culturally-specic vocabulary with which to depict a sel).

Finally, keep in mind that there are a number o ways to

approach Rousseaus text. Analyzing a pattern o repetition

is hardly the only one. For example, you might close read

a pivotal scene in the Conessions, such as the scene in which

Rousseau accuses a maid o stealing a ribbon that he himsel

has stolen. Even when ocusing on a pivotal scene, however,

you would probably analyze it in relation to other moments

in the text in which Rousseau discusses guilt, relationships

with women, etc. Usually it is through a set o relationships

between words, images, or scenes that one can better under-

stand the signicance o a single scene.

Example #2: Close Reading Poetry

Lets say youre asked to write a paper about William Word-

sworths sonnet, Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sep-

tember 3, 1802. At rst reading, the poem might seem like

a straightorward, poetic description o what the speaker

sees and eels while looking at London one beautiul summer

morning. But how might you gure out what else is going

on in the poem?

1) Begin by identiying structures and develop-

ments in the text. Look or unexpected devel-opments. Notice that Wordsworths poem is a modied

Petrarchan sonnet, consisting o an octave (or, two qua-

trains) and a sestet. (The rhyme scheme goes abba abba

cdcdcd, instead o the usual Petrarchan cdecde.) Usually

in a Petrarchan sonnet there is a turn (or volta) between

the octave and the sestet. This is a good place to start

looking or transitions and developments in the poem, but

its not the only place to begin. When reading this poem

you might also consider the relevance o the structure o

the English sonnet, in which the nal couplet (the nal

two lines) marks a development in the speakers attitude

some change in point o view or mood. In short, as you

start to make sense o the poem, consider the conventions

and structures o the poetic genre youre encountering.

In the case o Wordsworths sonnet, you might consider

the nal two lines (as a quasi-couplet in the English tradi-

tion): Dear God! The very houses seem asleep/ And all

that mighty heart [i.e., the city] is lying still! Theres

a lot o emotion in these nal lines, as the exclamation

marks suggest. But what kind o emotion is it? Has itchanged since the earlier description o the speakers

pleasurable response to a sight so touching? To get a

handle on the nal couplet, you might consider that a

still heart amounts to a dead heart. So by the nal line,

the poem seems to be in unexpectedly sinister territory,

in contrast to the superlatively air city o the rst line.

This contrast marks a strange, unexpected development

development worth analyzing urther. To that end, you

might ask: How does the poem arrive at the strange nal

couplet? In other words, you need to

2) Analyze howthe unexpected development hap-

pens: Youve noticed a transition rom a air city to

a dead city. How does the speaker get rom air to

dead? Look or guresor metaphors, similes, synec-

doches, personications, etc. (For more on gures, see

the indispensable Abrams, cited below.) In Wordsworths

poem, the speaker notably personies the city rom line

4 onward, where the city doth, like a garment, wear/

The beauty o the morning; silent, bare. So the city

takes on the aspect o a human being (which can die), and

the poem has now moved rom the realm o empirical

description to ction (as line 13s use o seem suggests).

3) Reect on the signifcance o the unexpected

development in the poem as a whole: Having

noticed an unexpected development puts you in an excel-

lent position to begin ormulating a thesis. Your thesis

wont simply point out the development, however; it will

make an argument about the developments signifcance.

To recap, we have observed a transition rom beauty to

something more sinister, a transition enabled by the use o

gurative language (specically, personication). So gu-

rative language is the mechanism that appears to enable,

even trigger, the unexpected development. It appears to

have a poweran agencynot only to viviy but also to

kill what it depicts.

As you consider this development and how it happens,

you might look or moments when this development is

oreshadowed: notice, or example, words like lie (in

the line Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie:

why lie? Why dont they stand?) and phrases like a

calm so deepwhich might describe sleep, but could

also describe death.

4) Parlay the unexpected development into a thesis:

With these observations in mind, we might devise a thesis

In short, as you start to make

sense o the poem, consider the

conventions and structures o the

poetic genre youre encountering.


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5

QUeSTIoNS To aSK aS YoU read a TeXT

Below are some questions that will help you develop a more active and interrogative mode of reading. Not all of these questions

will be appropriate for every text, of course, and sometimes the answers to appropriate questions still wont yield potential theses.Nonetheless, these questions provide a good starting place for close reading.

For novels and short stories

Whatisthegenreofthetext?Whataretheconventionsofthatgenre,andwhatdothoseconventionsleadustoexpectas

readers?Arethoseexpectationsalwaysrealized?Isthereamixofgenres(asthereis,forexample,in Jane Eyre, which is a goth-

icbildungsroman)?Ifso,howdotheconventionsofthosedifferentgenresinteract?(Inthecaseof Jane Eyre, theres a fraught

interactionbetweendevelopmentorbildung(whichlooksaheadtothefuture)andhaunting(whichimplicatesthepast).)

Isthenarratorrst-orthird-person,omniscientornot?Whatdoesthenarratorspositionsuggestaboutthecharactersand

eventsdepictedinthetext?Howmuchdoweknowaboutthenarrator?Howreliableisheorshe?

Doesanybody(narratorincluded)contradicthimselforherself?Howcanwemakesenseofthiscontradiction?Doesitmarka

development,aresponsetoanewenvironment,orsomethingelse?

Isthereagapinthestoryasecretoraneventthatisneverdepictedbutonlyalludedto?Whatistheeffectofsuchagapon

howwereadthestory?Howcanweanalyzethegapwithouttryingtollitin?Forexample,inHenryJamesnovel The Turn

of the Screw, we are never informed of the substance of Quints horrifying crime against the children. Rather than trying to

namethecrime,wecaninsteadanalyzehowthestorysgapsandsecretsinduceaparanoidmodeofreading,wherebyevery

detail seems to harbor deep, repressed meanings.

For Poems

Whatkindofpoemisthis?Whatisthepoemsrhymescheme?Howdoesitsrhymeschemestructureanddramatizethepoems

content?

Whatkindsofrelationshipsdevelopbetweenrhymedwords?Dorhymedwordsreinforceeachothersmeaningsorironize

them?Forexample,AlexanderPopespoem, The Rape of the Lock, regularly pairs serious and trivial words, such as despair

and hair to exemplify the intimacy of serious emotions and trivial circumstances in his mock-epic poem.

Whoisthespeaker?Whatcanweinferabouthisorherenvironment?Doeshisorhermoodremainconstantthroughoutthe

poemordoesitchange?Whatarethesignicantchangesofmoodandmindinthepoem?

Inthecaseofdrama,youwilllikelyaskacombinationofquestionsrelevantbothtoproseandtopoetry.Finally,noticewhatkinds

of questions are notlisted above. For example: what did the author intend?Insomesingle-authorcoursesyoumightworkwith

manuscript drafts and biography, and thereby have sources with which to speculate about an authors intentions. More often,

however,youwillnothaveenoughevidencetospeculateintelligentlyabouttheauthorsintentions.Intheabsenceofsuchevi -

dence, orient your claims towards the text.

about the volatile power o poetic language dramatized by

the unexpected development rom lie to death in

Wordsworths poem. We might argue that:

Wordsworths sonnet about London oers a case study

about the volatility o poetic language. I poetic language

begins by viviying the city through personication, ulti-

mately personication depicts the citys demise. In short,

the poetic device that represents the citys beauty is as vola-

tile as it is powerul, exempliying the instability o poetic

language. Notice a couple o eatures o this thesis:

Itidentiesatransition(fromviviedbeautytodeath)

and gives an account o the signicance o that transition

(the culprit is a volatile poetic language, which is no mere

passive tool as it turns out).

Thethesisidentiesatensionbetweentwomomentsin

the poem and doesnt try to tidy up or argue away that

tension. This thesis is interested in a complication, in the

unexpected and even uncomortable transition rom lie

to death. Weird complications tend to oer richer mate-

rial than complications easily overcome and tensions tidily

reconciled.

Thethesisisntparticularlycombativeorcontroversial.

Instead, it oers a way o understanding the poem thatwouldnt be apparent to a rst-time reader, engaging the

conceptual question o poetic languages power by analyz-

ing particular details in the poem itsel.


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6 Tips and Conventions

Like any genre, the English paper ollows some conventions

youll want to be aware o. I you have any questions about

your paper, consult your TF or proessoror clarication on

the assignment, or tips on how to approach the paper, and to

receive preliminary eedback on paper ideas. I the guidelines

oered here confict with what your TF or proessor tells you,

you should o course ollow their advice.

Avoid plot summary. A paper that recounts what hap-

pened in a novel (or a play)or that analyzes selected scenes

in the same order they occur in the novelis letting the

novels author rather than the papers author structure the

papers argument. Sometimes papers all into plot sum-

mary because a student imagines that he or she is writing

or a reader unamiliar with the novel. But i you imagine

that you are writing or someone who has read the novel at

least once, then you dont need to rehearse the plot or your

reader. Instead, you can ocus on selected scenes, briefy

identiying them beore analyzing signicant details. Resist

shadowing the novels chronology in your own paper. Onerule o thumb is to begin with the most obvious piece o

evidence and move progressively to the least obvious piece

o evidence. Ultimately, you should plot your own paper.

Use block quotations appropriately. When quot-

ing longer stretches o prose (more than our lines in your

paper), set it o rom the body o the paper in an indented

block quotation. In the case o poetry, more than three

lines o verse should be quoted en bloc. Block quotations

are a great opportunity to do some extended close reading.

When you use a block quotation, make sure that it is rich

enough to reward extended analysis (which should be at

least as long as the quotation itsel). A well-chosen block

quotation will not only corroborate a claim that you have

already argued, but will also oer a new, related emphasis

or implication or your argument to pursue. In this way,

block quotations can help your argument to maintain

momentum, averting the stagnant paper structure in which

a thesis is ollowed by a list o illustrative examples.

Avoid basing your argument on opinion. Some-

times a work o literature provokes personal eelings and

opinions in a reader. When this happens, the reader should

try to suspend those personal eelings and opinions as he or

she close reads, paying attention instead to structures and

eatures in the text. Textual evidence and not personal

conviction should be the basis o your thesis and argument.

Focus on speakers, not authors: Because English

papers make claims about texts rather than about authors,rst-person poems and narratives have a speaker or

narrator who should not be conused with the author.

David Coppereld, while he has autobiographical eatures,

is not Charles Dickens himsel. Likewise, Rousseau in

his Conessions is a linguistic construct with an ambiguous

relationship to the man himsel. Thereore, as a reader o

Rousseaus Conessions, you have evidence to make a claim

about the linguistic construct or character o Rousseau

rather than about Rousseau the man.

Write in the present tense. Because English papers

approach literary works as linguistic artiacts rather than as

historical documents, they discuss characters and events in

the present tense rather than the past tense. For example,

one might write: In Middlemarch, Dorothea expresses relie

that Casaubon does not enjoy piano music.

I youre taking a historicist approach to literary analy-

sis, keep in mind that when reerring to historical events

outside o the novel you should use the past tense, as you

would in a history paper. For example, Although Doro-

thea has little interest in music, George Eliot hersel was

very interested in music.

Use MLA style citations. Because English papers quoterequently, oten rom the same text, they cite page num-

bers parenthetically. For example: Dorothea expresses

disdain or domestic music and eminine ne art (65).

FURTHER READING

Abrams,M.H.andGeoffreyHarpham,A Glossary

of Literary Terms. 9th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Pub-

lishing, 2008.

JosephGibaldi,MLA Handbook for Writers of

Research Papers.6thed.NewYork:MLA,2003.

For

FurtHer

reADIng

Special thanks to James Engell and Leah Price.

Copyright 2008, Michelle Syba, or the Harvard College Writing Center.

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