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How To Use Close Reading Method

1) The close reading method involves analyzing both the form and content of a text. 2) When analyzing the form, one should examine elements like poetic structure, rhyme scheme, meter. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 follows the typical Shakespearean sonnet form of 14 lines with an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. 3) When analyzing content, one should understand the literal meaning, identify imagery, interpret tone and mood, and analyze symbols and themes. In Sonnet 18, the speaker uses nature imagery to praise the beauty and eternal qualities of their beloved.

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39 views

How To Use Close Reading Method

1) The close reading method involves analyzing both the form and content of a text. 2) When analyzing the form, one should examine elements like poetic structure, rhyme scheme, meter. Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 follows the typical Shakespearean sonnet form of 14 lines with an ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. 3) When analyzing content, one should understand the literal meaning, identify imagery, interpret tone and mood, and analyze symbols and themes. In Sonnet 18, the speaker uses nature imagery to praise the beauty and eternal qualities of their beloved.

Uploaded by

Danah Mae Advincula
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How To Use Close Reading Method?

Be familiar with the poetic conventions or literary elements. 

Read for general understanding of the text (literal meaning). Determine the
summary, the central idea/theme, key details, and text organization. 

Zoom in and think about vocabulary words, genre, text structure, syntax, point
of view, author’s purpose, perspective

Zoom out and consider visual features of the text, text quality, author
credibility, text-to-text connections. 

 
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?


2. Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
5.Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
7. And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8. By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
9. But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

11 Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,


12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A. How to describe the form of the poem

In reading and understanding poetry, you must first examine the form or structure of a
certain poem. Determine if the poem follows a conventional poetic form depending
on the number of its lines and stanza. In a sonnet, literary critics and poets established
that it requires 14 lines in order to be categorized as conventional sonnet. 
Examine also if the poem has a rhythmic pattern wherein it follows an end-rhyme or
internal rhyme scheme. This can be observed at the last syllable of the last word per
poetic line. Study the rhythmic pattern found in the Shakespeare’s sonnet 18. The last
syllable of the last word in line 1 and line 3 are actually rhyming in sound—day and
May. Notice also that the last syllable of the last word in lines 2 and 4 rhyme—
temperate and date. 
Afterwards, you have to take note that a sonnet is following the ababcdcdefefgg. (See
the pattern below). It is also known that a Shakespearean sonnet has a structure
consisting of 14 lines and measured with iambic pentameter in each line. Notice that
the first line is iambic pentameter.

  
B. How to read and interpret the content of the poem?

In the close reading method, you have to first read what is being described in the
poem or any literary text. You have to understand first its literal meaning or the
denotative meaning of what it wants to say. The imagery in the poem are the images
or the scenery of natural elements or feelings, attitude, or disposition of a person or
group of people being described by the persona in the poem. In Shakespeare’s sonnet
18, the persona is using the second person point-of-view “thou” from the old English
or “you” in the modern English and is addressing this person by comparing him/her to
a summer’s day. The “summer,” “the sun or the eyes of heaven,” “the rough winds,”
“the darling buds of May,” and even “death” here consist the imagery of the literary
text. Upon scrutinizing these images, read the lines all over again and identify what
feelings or mood the persona wish you to feel. Describe also the feeling of the persona
while articulating those lines? How? Try to read the lines again and imagine that you
are the one speaking in the poem? What is your tone as speaker? Are you angry?
Sweet? Furious? Mad? Disappointed? Remember that the tone can be interpreted
based on the feelingof the speaker or persona in the poem while the mood can be
determined by you as a reader. The mood depends on what the persona or speaker
wants the reader to feel why reading the literary text. 

This poem glorifies the beauty of the beloved wherein the persona stipulates
that these images of summer and natural elements are as glorious and beautiful as the
beloved. In the last quatrain of the poem, the persona articulated that the beauty of the
beloved shall never fade and is always preserved in the memory of the
speaker/persona; hence, he chose to preserve the beauty of the beloved through the
sonnet. This interpretation can be validated from the line 13 wherein the persona
assured that the beloved’s glorious beauty shall always be preserved as long as men
can breathe, or eyes can see. Even line 9 from the poem asserted that the beloved’s
beauty that is being compared to summer shall never fade despite the fleeting moment
of summer and the forthcoming cold winds of autumn.  
What is the difference between imagery and symbolism?  Imagery consists of
images that appeal to the senses or imagination of the readers while symbolism is
considered as one object or natural element that signifies an abstract concept which
the persona or the writer wish to convey to the readers. By understanding the poem’s
intention of glorifying the beauty of the beloved in Sonnet 18, you might have an idea
why the persona used summer as the main symbol of his/her love and admiration to
the beauty of his beloved. Now, try to analyze the act of preserving or immortalizing
the beauty of the persona’s beloved in the sonnet. What are the figures of speech that
the persona used to profess his adoration to his beloved as well as to immortalize such
glorious beauty? What do you think is the main idea or theme of Sonnet 18? 

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