Close Reading: The Basics [Paperback]

Close reading is an essential skill that literature students develop across the full length of their studies. This book, now in its second edition, is a complete guide to this foundational practice,?offering?model close readings of classic works of literature to provide?an effective methodology for poetry, novels, drama, and beyond.

David Greenham is Professor of English Literature at the University of the West of England, UK.

Preface; Introduction; Chapter 1: Seven pleasures of reading; Chapter 2: The semantic context; Chapter 3: The syntactic and thematic contexts; Chapter 4: Close reading case study 1: Hamlet,  getting to the crux of things; Chapter 5: The iterative context, Part 1: character and plot; Chapter 6: The iterative context, Part 2: sounds and rhythms; Chapter 7: The generic context; Chapter 8: The adversarial context; Chapter 9: Close reading case study 2: Beloved and the six contexts of close reading; Conclusion: adversarial appreciation and the futures of close reading; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Close reading is an essential skill that literature students continue to develop across the full length of their studies. This book, now in its second edition, is a complete guide to this foundational practice, providing an effective first principles methodology that can be used for poetry, novels, drama, and beyond.

Offering model close readings of classic works of literature, including Hamlet, The Great Gatsby and Beloved, David Greenham presents a unique, contextual approach to close reading, while addressing key questions such as:

• What is close reading?
• What is the importance of the relationships between words?