Ode on a Grecian URL

N.b.: I post weekly hebdomadal topics in the hope of directing your attention to literary analytical techniques that Prof. Ortiz-Robles is introducing in lecture. Consequently, I ask that you only write hebdomadals in response to that week's prompts.

If you want to apply an old prompt to a new text or topic, please ask me first. I'll probably say yes, but I just want to be sure that you're not spinning your literary analytical wheels.

Topic 1: Obsessive close reading

By close reading I mean (1) the identification of rhetorical (language-based) and formal (structure-based) subtleties in a short passage from a novel and (2) the subsequent connection of these subtleties to one of the novel's main themes or problems.

Adopt a paragraph from Wuthering Heights, and do so randomly. Open the book to any page at all and point your finger at a paragraph that strikes your fancy.

It is your job to prove that the themes and questions introduced in this paragraph connect to the themes and questions of the book. You might think of this as a fractal or as a cell in a larger body: the paragraph reveals microscopically the macroscopic shape of the text.

In class today, Prof. Ortiz-Robles had the class spend ten minutes looking at two sentences from Pride and Prejudice; you should spend a similar amount of time looking at your adopted paragraph. What sorts of words does it deploy? What are its rhetorical and formal nuances? How do those nuances relate to textual themes and questions? (You can derive your sense of the text's themes and questions from lecture or from your own ideas about the book's argument.)

Topic 2: Themes and tone

Adopt a paragraph as described in Topic 1, but rather than close read it for language and form and whatnot, look at how it uses language. Is there dialect? (E.g. in paragraphs quoting Joseph.) Is the tone poetic and solemn? (E.g. in paragraphs describing nature.) Is the tone condescending? Is it apologetic? Is it wordy and academic or is it pithy and blunt? Giving specific evidence -- word choice, punctuation, sentence length, rhyme and meter -- connect the tone of this paragraph to its role in the novel. How does this tone relate, do you think, to the larger themes and problems of the novel?

What you are looking for here is a way to look at the style of this paragraph and see the larger argument of the text. This is hard to do, and really kind of fun.