Peripeteia

I began to think about how close reading as a technique can be constructed on different levels, each independent but complementing one another, especially when writing about poetry.
There are a few rough categories, borrowing from Linguistics:
1. Phonemic–rhymes, alliterations, cacophony, harmony, etc.
2. Semantic—Thematic concern, semantic discord, etc.
3. Syntactic—word order, line breaks, organisations, working with enjambment and caesura, etc.
4. Pragmatic—the way of speaking, speech acts, pragmatic ambiguity, tone, etc.

Going further from language itself is narrative analysis, a term from psychotherapy, focusing on events and how one tells those events, through metaphors, etc.

Aesthetically, the more expansive and coherent your argument is between these different levels and with wider context (e.g. Intertextual connections), the stronger and more pleasant your essay will be.

Clarity, of course, is the most important element of your writing that contributes to your grade in A-levels and other formative assessments. Criticism by Hermione Lee never ceases to amaze me (see Lee's writing on Mrs Dalloway) in its well-purged balance of transparency and reach.

Interesting & helpful observations, Mr Wong, thank you.

While I agree with you, re the point about clarity of expression reflecting clarity of thought, particularly at A-level & university degree level, not all literary critics would concur, as I'm sure you're aware.

The most extreme might argue against 'clarity' as an essentially Anglo-Saxon product of language that actually fatally simplifies and, in fact, distorts & misrepresents the slippy, uncertain, irresolvable mutuality of both language and existence itself. See, for example, the work of Lacan.

Then again, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault are all notably French!

Thank you for your comment, Mr Bowen!

This also reminds me of historical 'figurative' criticisms in Chinese Literature (意象批評), which differs from analytical criticism in English Literature. This refers to literary criticism that aims to convey the affect of literary texts, specifically poems, through metaphorical and often opaque language. Just like the Mirror and the Lamp, critical writings seek to reflect the literary text itself.

Indeed I would agree that literary criticism need not reflect the 'truth' as such. At the end of the day, "language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought", at least according to Ev Fedorenko(2024).

P.S. I am yet to read Derrida's essay in French, which might prove productive in discerning why 'Deconstruction' started in France!