The following is a glossary of terms you can use for your close readings.
- AMBIGUOUS: susceptible to multiple interpretations.
- APOSTROPHE: impassioned address.
- CLAIM: proposition not yet proven by evidence (theory, hypothesis).
- CLOSE READING: scrutiny of text itself for detailed evidence.
- COHERENCE: recognizable relation between elements or properties.
- CONCLUSION: proposition proven by evidence.
- CRITICISM: discussion of specific examples.
- DICTION: word-choice; vocabulary.
- DISCOURSE: specific telling (narrative) of a story; language deployed, especially in a particular manner, as in legal discourse; linguistic example longer than a sentence.
- ELEMENT: small unit or detail.
- FICTION: narrative not considered potentially verifiable.
- FIGURE: deviation from everyday use of language (trope).
- FORM, FORMULATION: actual example of text; specific manifestation of thought.
- GENRE: conventional name classifying type of written work
- IMAGE: visual detail; also can refer to other four senses.
- LATENT: implicit, underlying, hidden.
- LITERARY THEORY: philosophy of literature; attempt to explain what literature is in general and how it should or may be interpreted; called poetics until the 1930s or since New Criticism; poetics that continuously questions its own assumptions and methods.
- LITERARY: dimension of text where forms and themes are viewed as ultimately inseparable (poetic); not susceptible to being paraphrased or replicated in a different form.
- METAPHOR: implicit comparison — without like or as.
- METONYMY: metaphor based on known connection, as in Crown for King.
- OVERDETERMINATION: occurs when one explicit element is linked to multiple implicit elements at the same time; symptom having multiple causes; form as manifestation of multiple thoughts at once.
- OVERINTERPRETATION: holding multiple interpretations at the same time, potential consequence of ambiguity.
- POETIC: dimension of text where forms and themes are seen interacting (literary); not susceptible to being paraphrased or replicated in a different form.
- POETRY: language used figuratively and indirectly; normally has a visibly strict
arrangement. - PROPERTY or FEATURE: specific and describable use of language, may involve a combination of elements.
- RHETORIC: means of describing formal and thematic properties; art of persuasion.
- SPEECH ACT: use of language that performs an action.
- STORY: sequence of events presumed to underlie narrative discourse.
- STRAIGHTFORWARD READING: linear approach seeking uniform answers.
- TEXT: piece, passage, selection, work of writing.
- THEME: abstract topic.
- THESIS: main claim or conclusion; direction of themes.
- TROPE: figure; deviation from everyday use of language.
- VERSE: language fixed in a conventional scheme or pattern, not necessarily poetry.
*Taken from Schur, David. An Introduction to Close Reading. Harvard, 1998.