Tips on Analyzing a Literary Passage

When students have to analyze a literary commentary, they often realize that this task is more difficult than it seems. When analyzing a literary passage, you need to not only retell but also to interpret it. Therefore, it is important to take the right steps, in analyzing the structure, context, form and author’s perspective. We hope that this guide at writers-house.com blog will help you write a great analysis. First of all, you should know that you’re literary analysis must have the same structure as an essay.

Context

You should know the context of your literary passage to analyze it properly. For example, you may need to familiarize yourself with a certain literary movement. A literary passage may also have the author’s personal context or relate to certain historical events.

Usually, you need to analyze a certain historical moment and explain how it relates to the text. You may use some examples or cite cultural influences from that period that are reflected in the text.

Introduction

The introduction of a literary passage analysis must serve four main purposes:

• It should include the title of the work and the author’s name;
• It should grab your readers’ attention with an interesting first sentence (hook);
• It should explain the historical context;
• It should present the thesis statement.

The statement must be your main argument and serve as the basis for all the other arguments.

Author

Although there are many anonymous literary passages, most of them have authors. When analyzing a literary passage written by a certain author, you should also consider some biographical aspects that may help your readers understand the text.

We recommend that you cite the place of birth and provide the most important information about the author’s career. Pay your attention to the information about the author that can help understand the text or is present in it.

Themes

Every literary piece has its main theme that serves as the basis for the plot. We recommend that you explain the main themes of the text and describe the methods used by the author to develop this theme.

You should also consider all the other themes related to the book, as well as the way they relate to each other and the main theme.

The chances are that your text contains certain symbols and metaphors that you need to analyze and interpret. Don’t forget that your interpretation should be directly related to your thesis statement. Use paraphrasing and quotes to make your arguments stronger.

Formal Aspects

When analyzing a literary passage, you should think about the rhetorical approaches used by the author and consider the figures of speech used in the text. There are also other formal elements that will help you make your analysis more interesting:

• The narrator: why did the author choose this narrator?
• Imagery: describe the places and people from the text that will support your argument.
• Structure: how is the story structured? Did the action happen in the past, present, or future?

Tone: the text may have an optimistic, worried, sarcastic, or morbid tone. The tone has a big impact on the way readers perceive the text.