Close Reading: The Basics

<p>Close reading is the most essential skill that literature students continue to develop across the full length of their studies. This book is the ideal guide to the practice, providing a methodology that can be used for poetry, novels, drama, and beyond. Using classic works of literature, such as <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>The Great Gatsby</i> as case studies, David Greenham presents a unique, contextual approach to close reading, while addressing key questions such as:</p><ul> <p> </p> <li>What is close reading?</li> <p> </p> <li>What is the importance of the relationships between words?</li> <p> </p> <li>How can close reading enhance reading pleasure?</li> <p> </p> <li>Is there a method of close reading that works for all literary genres?</li> <p> </p> <li>How can close reading unlock complexity?</li> <p> </p> <li>How does the practice of close reading relate to other theoretical and critical approaches?</li> </ul><p>Close Reading: The Basics is formulated to bring together reading pleasure and analytic techniques that will engage the student of literature and enhance their reading experience.</p> <p><em>Preface</em>; Introduction; Chapter 1 Seven pleasures of reading; Chapter 2 The semantic context; Chapter 3 The syntactic and thematic contexts; Chapter 4 Getting to the crux of things: Hamlet, a case study; Chapter 5 The iterative context, Part 1: character and plot; Chapter 6 The iterative context, Part 2: sounds and rhythms; Chapter 7 The generic context; Chapter 8 The adversarial context; Conclusion: Adversarial appreciation and the futures of close reading; <em>Glossary</em>; <em>Bibliography</em> </p>