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HAVE A POINT. This seems so basic, but it’s useful to keep reminding yourself of anyway. You can’t have a coherent reading of any literary work if you don’t have an opinion — firmly stated at the start of your essay — of what the piece is about. BE SPECIFIC, NOT GENERAL. The sure way to get a revision on your essay is to say “Shakespeare is talking about feeling weak.” Physically? Emotionally? Does his stomach hurt or does he have a sprained ankle? Does he long for something or is he shy? When you’re doing a close reading, look at each line or set of lines to figure out how each detail comes together to form a coherent whole. The more specific you can be in thinking about each detail (within the context of that whole), the better your piece is going to be. BE SYSTEMATIC. This means take things in the order the poem wrote them. He crafted the poem to be experienced in a certain way; your job is to analyze it following that same way. Don’t skip around in your analysis. METER SUPPORTS MEANING. What this really means is that the technical elements of poetry (form, scansion, rhyme, etc.) are all only meaningful if they’re used to show how the poet highlights one or more meanings within an image, line, thought or poem. To say something is an Italian sonnet isn’t enough; you have to show how the poet uses that form to achieve something concrete, make a meaning most evident. |