Close Reading

Literary theory and criticism have developed over the course of more than 3000 years, starting with Aristotle and even Plato and Socrates, and it took many forms based on the time period or conditions within which the theory arose. Literary theory is basically seeking an answer to why we read and produce literature and what makes a work of literature good while literary criticism is the appliance of the theory in practice to evaluate or understand a work of literature. There have been many ways to read a text throughout the history but as for Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, I will use certain methods to do a close reading into the selected 20 lines from the text. These are Platonian reading, Aristotelian reading, Horacian reading, Russian Formalism, and lastly Psychoanalytic or Freudian reading. ...

Arthur Miller is one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century who was born in 1915 and was awarded a Pulitzer Price. His legacy will without doubt live forever defying aging and time because they deal with the social realities and the nature of people that all of humanity possessed here and there. His inclination to communism rendered him as a critic of the capitalism that climbed towards its peak in the 20th century, and he wittingly criticized capitalism and the inner nature of people with successful allegories. ...

The Cask of Amontillado, written by Edgar Ellan Poe was first published in 1846 in a women’s magazine called “Godey’s Lady’s Book. The author, both a writer and a literary critic and theoretician is considered to be the master, and sometimes father of horror. He is also known to be the father of the short story genre and he published an article in the same year as this short story, which is called The Philosophy of Composition that glorifies the Short Story genre. (Sova,45) ...

Reference excerpt is at the bottom of the page. Literary theory and criticism have developed over the course of more than 3000 years, starting with Aristotle and even Plato and Socrates, and it took many forms based on the time period or conditions within which the theory arose. Literary theory is basically seeking an answer to why we read and produce literature and what makes a work of literature good while literary criticism is the appliance of the theory in practice to evaluate or understand a work of literature. There have been many ways to read a text throughout the history but as for Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, I will use certain methods to do a close reading into the selected 20 lines from the text. These are Platonian reading, Aristotelian reading, Horacian reading, Russian Formalism, and lastly Psychoanalytic or Freudian reading. ...

Reference excerpt is at the bottom of the page. Jacques Derrida has changed the way people think about a text. He not only created a new understanding for the text, but also changed the way people interpret languages. With his deconstruction, the language became a subjective medium within which signifiers and symbols and signs dominated the vague meaning, as far as semiotics concerned. After deconstruction, the literary criticism and theory changed completely for a while, especially in the United Kingdom and United States as Derrida was counted among the 5 master theorists in the world along with Marx, Freud, Hegel and Kant. Therefore, I will try to hold a deconstructive approach throughout this paper to analyze the excerpt from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. ...

The reference excerpt is at the bottom of the page. Close Reading allows for a deeper understanding and a deeper pleasure when reading a work of literature. It is generally related to critical media literacy in terms of their pursue for the real meaning that lies behind the apparent lines. In Critical Media Literacy, one should compare multiple sources to validate the reliability of a news along with other techniques. Similarly, in order to do a successful close reading, one should be able to compare the lines and read between the lines, considering the text as a whole and dissecting it. In this way, the hidden messages can be unearthed. The internal logic in a text must be fulfilled to satisfy the reader experience. Therefore, I will be dissecting and analyzing a small section -20 lines- of the play but it will account for the text as a whole. Also, I chose the opening part of the play as it is suggestive enough of what to expect from the play in later parts. ...