Assignement 6

Original text

“Firstly, I want to offer a check-list of the kind of operations we perform when we tackle textuality without any particular resort to theory. I will then ask what is missing, and suggest four areas which the traditional approach doesn't quite cover, using a Shakespeare sonnet by way of illustration. This is followed by a brief description of what is meant by deconstructive reading, and the final section an example of such reading is given, using Adrienne Rich's poem 'Transit.”

Paraphrase

Barry has gathered the most common ways to interpret literature. However, these are not adequate. He will in addition to the typical way of analyzing literature introduce four more elements. By using a Shakespeare sonnet, Barry will give an idea what these four elements look like. Adrienne Rich's poem “Transit, is a good example of what “deconstructive reading” is. This is a concept he will deal with in the end of the text.

Original text

These, then, are some of the main ways in which readers and critics engage with literary texts and begin to put forward accounts of what they mean. So, where does it leave us? The situation is this. We will always need these ten elements of interpretation. Literary criticism can never grow out of them, and they can never be superseded. It's impossible to do English without them. It always was, and it always will be.

Paraphrase

Barry emphasises how important “the ten elements” are. These ten ways to look at literature are indispensable when we interpret literature, he goes to the length of asserting that we can’t analyze literature without them. Barry says that it has always been an important part and it will be continued.

Important words/phrases that should be quoted

There are many terms that are hard to replace with other words or phrases, such as: macro-patterns, ten elements and deconstructive reading.

This paragraph is filled with language terminology and is therefore very hard to rephrase:

“So the deconstructor looks for such things as, firstly, contradictions, secondly, linguistic quirks and aporia, thirdly, shifts or breaks (in tone, viewpoint, tense, person, attitude, etc.), and finally, absences or omissions.”

Review

The author proves in various ways that he masters this area. He makes some really good points, especially by clearly illustrating the differences in Shakespeare’s sonnet. Examples like that are really useful when one is applying them in practice. However, I think Barry throughout the text overuses difficult words and terms. Considering that the first ten elements are quite basic facts.

Assignement 5

Peter Barry is in his text “Tackling Textuality – with theory” dealing with problems one might encounter when interpreting literature. He provides a checklist with types of rules we use when we deal with literature.

1. We look for the structure of the work. That is in order to be able to read between the lines.
2. Characters and things might change; what looked like a matter of course in the beginning of the novel might change and turn out to be something completely different towards the end.
3. We read between the lines and look beyond the obvious.
4. We make a distinction between meaning and significance.
5. The genre of the book affects the way we comprehend the work.
6. Many text are supposed to be read as metaphorical, especially poesy.
7. We don’t read everything as metaphorical, what is written is sometimes the only purpose and no further interpretation in needed.
8. We look for patterns. However, the interesting part is where the pattern is broken.
9. We understand how literary work is divided, the obvious divisions and the more hidden ones.
10. We understand that the meaning of words differ from different time periods.

Barry emphasises the importance of these ten ways on how to approach literature. However, they are not adequate; we need more means when we are interpreting literary works. He suggests four more elements and he uses Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 to illustrate theses in contrast to each other. According to Barry are these four elements literature and history, literature and language, literature and gender and literature and psychoanalysis. He illustrates clearly how theses different aspects of interpreting the very same text differ depending on the method one uses.

Barry discusses the relationship between language and literature. He defines the term deconstructive reading by using the term “textual harassment”. It is very common that people focus on details within the text rather than looking at the text as unit. He uses the poem “Oread” by Hilda Doolittle to illustrate how a “deconstructor”, as Barry likes to call them, reads a text.

He sums up by once again saying that analyzing literature is not easy. He claims that the tricky bits are there for a reason and that it is fun to elucidate them.

Keywords:

Metaphors – He uses metaphors throughout the text to compare how we interpret literature. Furthermore, he emphasises the importance of detecting them when reading literature.

“The ten elements” – Barry claims that these elements are as indispensible when we are analyzing literature.

Meaning – Analyzing literature is to find the meaning behind written words. His text is dealing with how to do this.

Deconstructive reading- This conception is explained thoroughly in the text.

Significance