Intro to Close Reading

Learn close reading, the core skill of literary analysis, and develop techniques for a richer personal reading practice and critical discussion. What does it mean to be a good reader? Most of us read daily—you’re doing it right now—but, as literacy rates have risen, so has anxiety about our ability to read well. Reading, some critics have posited, is both a skill and an art: as with painting or playing the piano, the most sophisticated performances may have an ineffable quality, but they also involve the application of practical techniques. In this workshop we will learn to close read, the most essential such technique for interpreting literature. Close reading is the practice of analyzing a text through fine attention to its small components. It is the fundamental technique of literary studies; as such, it’s taught primarily in academic settings and oriented toward the production of literary criticism. This workshop adapts close reading’s methods for the public, and is oriented instead toward the development of a fulfilling personal reading practice and the social exchange of ideas. Close reading gets us beyond the surface of our initial emotional response to a text. It facilitates richer engagement with a work of art, enabling the reader to wring out infinitely more meaning from a complex piece of literature. It equips us to think deeply; it is predicated on the suspicion that thinking hard is intrinsically valuable, and that it’s fun.