THE EXAM: THREE PASSAGE ANALYSIS

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed" - Ernest Hemingway

The Literature exam is comprised of two components: Three Passage Analysis and Literary Perspectives. So what does that all mean? Let us break it down for you. In ‘Three Passage Analysis’, you are given three short excerpts on your chosen text, and you are required to write a close analysis on a minimum of two of those passages. The analysis of each passage should feed into an overall interpretation which links the passages together.

Close analysis

Truth be told, I never truly understood close analysis until about Term 3 holidays. I understood that close analysis was holding up a magnifying glass to the text, and scrutinising its various literary devices – tone, imagery, rhythm, meter, sound, patterns of language – but what did not fully sink in until a month before the exam was that there was no right answer to how each of these techniques contributed to meaning. Here are some examples of close analysis that I have written on Browning:

In “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, the speaker barges into the silence with an unrefined growl, the guttural quality of “Gr-r-r” sustained through the throaty ‘r’ sounds of “heart” and “abhorrence”. The vociferous opening, intensified by the exclamation mark at the end of the line, conveys an almost animalistic kind of energy that cannot be contained within the oppressive shelter of the cloister nor be contented with “wise talk of the kind of weather”.

The elusive nature of thought is also enacted through the abruptly enjambed lines of stanza three, as the mixture of enjambment and caesura lends the language an almost capricious character: “First it left/The yellowing fennel, run to seed/There…”

In stanza ten, the transience of the speaker’s thoughts is linked with the inexorable movement of time which flows like a ceaseless current, an “everlasting wash of air” against which mortals have no power. Yet while the speaker seems to have surrendered “control” by “letting nature have her way”, the faltering dashes that punctuate this stanza causes his will to fragment as the lines perform a reluctance and reveal his desire to stay in the moment, to bathe in her “soul’s warmth”. (“Two in the Campagna”)

As you can see, close analysis is incredibly subjective, and reading my own work often makes me chuckle. However, whether your reader agrees with your interpretation is actually quite irrelevant. What’s important is that you are working closely with the text, using the “how” of the language to support the “what”.

There are many different ways of reading “Soliloquy” – some classmates viewed it as primarily a critique of the Church and their hypocrisy, some understood it as a humorous exploitation of dramatic irony, I read it as a celebration of human passion, beneath the superficial satire. To me, the poem emanated a fiery yet irresistible energy that was both unattractive and compelling. I had found my “what” (what is Browning potentially aiming to convey? What do I make of the poem?). The next step was to figure out the “how”: how does Browning conjure up these feelings in his reader?

I went through the poem again, this time focusing on the sounds, alliteration, punctuation, tone, meter, etc. Are the sounds melodious, with long, elongated vowels and soft, sibilant consonants, or are they rough and cacophonous, grinding against the ear?

Here is the first stanza:

Gr-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence!

Water your damned flower-pots, do!

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,

God’s blood, would not mine kill you!

Let’s start with sound:

I noticed that the first line contained an abundance of r’s: “Gr-r-r”, “there”, “heart”, “abhorrence”. Circling them, I wrote down “guttural”. As I read the next line aloud, I found myself placing emphasis on “damned” and “do”, which both happened to begin with a harsh consonant, ‘d’. Coupled with the trochaic meter (dum-dee dum-dee dum-dee dum), Browning probably intended this line to sound dissonant and clashy.

Punctuation:

The only thing that caught my attention was the excess of exclamation marks. Slightly boring, but still worthy of a passing comment.

Now, translating these rough thoughts into a sparkling analysis:

In “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”, the speaker barges into the silence with an unrefined growl, the guttural quality of “Gr-r-r” sustained through the throaty ‘r’ sounds of “heart” and “abhorrence”. The vociferous opening, intensified by the exclamation mark at the end of the line, conveys an almost animalistic kind of energy that cannot be contained within the oppressive shelter of the cloister nor be contented with “wise talk of the kind of weather”.

Notice how I tied the observations to my overarching contention, which also influenced my choice of adjectives: barges, unrefined, vociferous. Instead of merely stating that “this” implies “that”, aim to create an atmosphere of deep engagement and feeling. One of the ways to do this is to add a variety of adjectives (underlined), although make sure you don’t go overboard, or else it’ll sound overly wacky and wanky. Remember that ease of expression and clarity of meaning is more important than flowery, overcomplicated language.

Hopefully this gave you a better idea of what close analysis entails. To be continued…