literary analysis

Examples of literary analysis in the following topics:

• Introduction to Writing in the Humanities

  • You might write a literary analysis of a novel, story, play, or poem; an analysis that explains how a written or visual text works to persuade a specific audience; an expository essay that shares personal experiences or explores ideas; a research paper investigating the history of a particular theoretical approach; or a persuasive article that works to convince a specific audience of your thesis.
  • An interpretation, or analysis, involves the discovery of meaning in a text (or film, or painting, etc.) or the production of meaning in the process of reading a text.
  • It tries to assist the reader in understanding specific events (literary, cultural, or otherwise) rather than just engaging in summary.

• The Literary Digest Poll

  • Beginning with early issues, the emphasis of The Literary Digest was on opinion articles and an analysis of news events.
  • By 1927, The Literary Digest climbed to a circulation of over one million.
  • Further, as subsequent statistical analysis and study have shown, it is not necessary to poll ten million people when conducting a scientific survey .
  • Cover of the February 19, 1921 edition of The Literary Digest.
  • Critique the problems with the techniques used by the Literary Digest Poll

• References

  • Li, C. (1975) Path analysis: A primer.
  • Squire, P. (1988) Why the 1936 Literary Digest poll failed.

• Art History Methodology

  • At best, this is done in a manner which respects its creator's motivations and imperatives; with consideration of the desires and prejudices of its patrons and sponsors; with a comparative analysis of themes and approaches of the creator's colleagues and teachers; and with consideration of iconography and symbolism.
  • Art historians also often examine work through an analysis of form; that is, the creator's use of line, shape, color, texture, and composition.
  • An iconographical analysis is one which focuses on particular design elements of an object.
  • Critical theory in art history is often borrowed from literary scholars, and it involves the application of a non-artistic analytical framework to the study of art objects.
  • As in literary studies, there is an interest among scholars in nature and the environment, but the direction that this will take in the discipline has yet to be determined.

• Documents

  • Researchers may also develop and employ theories and methods from disciplines including cultural studies, rhetoric, philosophy, literary theory, psychology, political economy, economics, sociology, anthropology, social theory, art history and criticism, film theory, feminist theory, information theory, and political science .
  • Content analysis refers to the study of recorded human communications, such as paintings, written texts, and photos.

• Literary Naturalism

  • Naturalism was a literary movement that used realism to explore the effects of heredity and social environment on human character.
  • Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from roughly 1880 to 1940 that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character.
  • Naturalism is the outgrowth of literary realism , a prominent literary movement in mid-19th-century France and elsewhere.
  • Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter; for example, the works of Émile Zola, the most renowned literary naturalist, had a frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism .
  • A strong characteristic of literary naturalism is the author's detachment from the story and the attempt to maintain a tone that will be experienced as 'objective' by the reader.

• Study Questions

  • Try to apply the notion of group sub-structures at different levels of analysis.
  • Can you think of a real-world (or literary) example of a population with sub-structures?

• Surrealism

  • Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault.
  • They began experimenting with automatic writing—spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the literary journal.
  • Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists as they developed methods to liberate their imaginations.
  • Along with dream analysis, the Surrealists emphasized that "one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects" .

• Classical Greek Poetry and History

  • Homer, one of the greatest Greek poets, significantly influenced classical Greek historians as their field turned increasingly towards scientific evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect.
  • Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.
  • Thucydides is sometimes known as the father of “scientific history”, or an early precursor to 20th century scientific positivism, because of his strict adherence to evidence-gathering and analysis of historical cause and effect without reference to divine intervention.
  • Despite its heavy political slant, scholars cite strong literary and philosophical influences in Thucydides’ work.

• Analyzing Poetry

  • But every literary work had an author and an audience, and both are deeply influenced by a particular place and time.
  • This means that a literary work—in its form and/or content—resembles other literary works.
  • When we focus on similar content, we are either discussing allusions—intended references to another literary image—or archetypes, images or characters that appear so frequently they are less the domain of one author than part of a common literary heritage.
  • Chief question: How is this literary work like/unlike other literary works?
  • That means every literary work presents actions/beliefs for us to applaud or denounce.