A guide for the stylistic commentar of literary excerpts or short texts

Work in progress!! This text is unfinished and contains 'stubs'. (Last modified 4Feb13)

I am making this guide from what I learned –and am learning– from different sources, basically Lázaro & Correa
Cómo se comenta , López & Alonso Poesia y novela, Leech & Short Style in Fiction (from which questions marked
off by a left-hand-margin line are taken). For details of these and other sources and references, see the bibliography
at the end of this document.

Steps to follow:

1.- reading and understanding the text

2.- analysing the text

3.- writing your own commentary

Self-study

online tutorials

Models and samples

1.-READING AND UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT

Read the text carefully, and read it again. As many times as you need. If you read a text in an earlier variety of
English, be careful with obsolete meanings; do not only consult a present-day dictionary but look up in – the OED
(Oxford English Dictionary) [from any computer connected to the University intranet, you can click on
http://www.uv.es/biblioteca/sib/bdigital_c.html] – specialised glossaries

A good way to ensure your understanding of the text is to translate it into your mother tongue with a view to
produce an understandable, acceptable and idiomatic rendering for an imaginary reader who does not know English.

2.-ANALYSING THE TEXT :

§ identify the text

§ interpret the meaning(s) of the text, subject matter and theme(s)

§ explain the content structure

§ analyze the style :

communicative or discourse level

text level

semantic and lexical level

morphosyntactic level

phonic level

3.-WRITING YOUR OWN COMMENTARY

Once you have analyzed the text, you select the relevant information from each aspect in order to write your own
commentary.

You can organize your commentary as you think best, but I expect a commentary to contain the following:
- Brief identification of the text: genre, the work it belongs to, its author, its literary context (collection or series,
writer’s complete works, literary school or movement, if appropriate) (Do not write at length about its author or
literary context) - Discusion of the communicative purpose, theme(s), issues, tensions and motifs, of the text both in
itself, and in connection with the whole work the text is extracted from (and with the collection or series, if it is the
case) (Do not paraphrase the text)

- Discussion of the content structure of the text (disposition of parts, sequence, climax)

- Explication of how language and stylistic choices contribute to the theme and tone of the text.

If it is a poem: describe its versification and what it tells.

If it is a play: point out stage conventions involved (asides, implied gestures or movements) or questions of
production and staging (different interpretations of character, speech, etc.)

If it is a narrative excerpt: discuss appropriate narratological features (types of narrator, perspective or focalization,
etc.)

You can structure your explication as you think best (following the actual sequential order of the text; organizing
your comments around specific aspects; etc.)

IMPORTANT REMARK:

do not simply describe what you observe in the text, but explain it

always ask questions 'why this is so', 'what effect it has' and find their answers by relating what the text
communicates with how it communicates, with the way it is expressed)

a way to see a particular effect is to imagine an alternative expression, discern what different effect it makes and
then compare it with the actual choices in the text

ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT

§ identify the text

§ interpret the meaning(s) of the text,

§ explain the content structure

§ analyze the style :

communicative or discourse level

text level

semantic and lexical level

morphosyntactic level

phonic level

IDENTIFICATION /LOCALIZATION OF EXCERPT

within the work the text belongs to,

within writer’s complete works,

linguistic or philological identification: what variety of the language is used: chronological, geographical, social
(inferred from lexical, morphological, and syntactical features)
within literary context: conventions -> type of text:

mode,

genre,

occasion,

character (descriptive, narrative, argumentative, expostive, lyrical, satirical)

function: to amuse, to inform, to persuade, etc.

INTERPRETATION OF THE MEANING(S) OF THE TEXT,

[INVENTIO, INTERNAL STYLISTICS]

First, we'll try to find an idea or purpose (in meaning, tone, effect) that provides a sense of unity to the text:

? What is the main communicative purpose of the text? What does it intend to convey?

? what are the main tensions or contrasts on which the text is articulated?

? If the text is an excerpt from a work, what ideas, emotions, effects in this passage contribute to the main concerns,
themes or issues in the work?

A first step towards discerning the text’s theme(s) may be to summarize what the text is about (paraphrase of forty
words) [This paraphrase is not the identification of the theme or themes]

Theme(s): abstraction from the meaning of actual events, emotions, and characters in order to identify fundamental
and universal ideas explored in the text.

Thematic axis or thread running through the text= unity of meaning projected by the text, what the text
communicates (its substance of content)

it can be expressed in a few words (e.g. “a call to enjoy youth for life is transient”)

topoi or commonplaces: recurrent themes in literature (e.g. topós of “Collige, virgo, rosas” by Ausonious, “Carpe
diem” by Horace; contempt for the world, the world upside down; appearance and reality; all the world is a stage)

Secondary motifs

Identify secondary motifs [motifs = recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the themes)

Identify various kinds of relationship between motifs and thematic axis: (also expressed in terms of functions
fulfilled by these motifs)

-supporting motifs ( “depiction of woman in terms of ideal beauty”, presented before “call to enjoy youth for life is
transient”)

- framing motifs

-contrasting motifs

-intensifying motifs

EXPLAIN THE CONTENT STRUCTURE

[ DISPOSITIO, INTERNAL STYLISTICS, Thematic structure]

Articulation [units or parts]

Sequence and relationship

Composition and formal patterns [organizing distribution of contents]

Climax / content vector

? Where is the climax of the text?

Climax = point of tension, greatest intensity of content

Depending on the position of the text's climatic point, we can observe different vectors in the content organization:

climatic movement= progressive intensification , climax at the end

anti-climatic movement:

climax at the beginning and then tension decreases

tension intensifies - climax- tension diminishes

ANALYSIS OF STYLE

[ELOCUTIO, EXTERNAL STYLISTICS]

“Every analysis of style … is an attempt to find the artistic principles underlying a writer’s choice of language”
(Leech & Short 74)

“We have to make ourselves newly aware, for each text, of the artistic effect of the whole, and the way linguistic
details fit into this whole” (Leech & Short 75)

“The answers to these questions will give a range of data which may be examined in relation to the literary effect of
each passage” (Leech & Short 75)

? How do the text's linguistic choices help to establish its unifying idea (meaning(s), purpose, theme)? If the text is
an excerpt from a work, how do linguistic choices help to establish the work's main issues)?

You can analyse the text’s linguistic choices by looking at different linguistic levels

communicative or discourse level

text level

semantic and lexical level

morphosyntactic level

phonic level

Communicative / Discourse level

[The text in context= [discourse situation] external relations of a text seeing it as a discourse presupposing a social
relation between its participants (author and reader; character and character), and a sharing by participants of
knowledge and assumptions.]
? Who speaks? (If narrative, see Narrative text section; if lyrical, Lyrical text section)

? To whom is the text addressed?

? What relations do you see between addresser and addressee?

in terms of power relations

- Does the writer address the reader directly or through the words or thoughts of some fictional character?

- What linguistic clues (e.g. 1st-person pronouns) are there of the addresser-addressee relationship?

-What attitude does the author imply towards her or his subject?

-If a character’s words or thoughts are represented, is this done by direct quotation (direct speech) or by some other
method (e.g. indirect speech, free indirect speech)?

-Are there significant changes of style according to who is supposedly speaking or thinking the words on the page?

Lyrical text

Lyrical attitudes (López & Alonso):

“I” speaker …

“You” speaker …

3rd pers speaker …

Narrative text

[Friedman's list of questions]:

? - Who is “talking” to the reader? [= narrator]

author in 1st or 3rd person [ = heterodiegetic, non-character narrator]

character in 1st or 3rd person [= homodiegetic, character-narrator]

or ostensibly no one [¿= imperceptible narrator]

? - from what position (angle)? [= focalization, perspective]

above

periphery

central

front

shifting

? - What channels of information he uses to convey the story to the reader?

author’s words, thoughts, perceptions or feelings,

character’s words, thoughts, perceptions or feelings

character’s actions

? - at what distance does the place the reader from the story?

Kinds of narrative mediation

Dramatic text

Dialogue

Are there specific dialogue patterns used: stichomythia, quick exchange of short speech turns, set speeches
(monologues, soliloquies)?

What is the function of the set speech being used (expression of emotions [lament, threat, vow of vengeance,
deathbed-speech], a character’s self-introduction, inner reflection, accusation, description, narration of past events,
planning of future events, judgement, resolution, review of the situation, exhortation, accusation, appeasement,
wooing, petition, invocation, counsel, panegyric, greeting, challenge, triumph)?

How do characters address each other? Do forms of address reveal something about social class or power
relationships between the speakers?

Do the characters’ speech turns involve explicit information, or do they rely on implicit meanings?

Are the interlocutors being relevant, ambiguous, too or less informative than expected?

What do these politeness strategies reveal about power relationships?

Stage directions

What information do the stage directions bear? Are they used to describe setting, characterization?

Does the text use the “aside” convention? “eavesdropping"? For what purpose?

Text level

Cohesion = ways in which one part of a text is linked to another (e.g. the way sentences are connected)

- Does the text contain logical or other links between sentences (e.g. coordinating conjunctions, or linking
adverbials)? Or does it tend to rely on implicit connections of meaning?

- What sort of use is made of cross-reference by pronouns (she, it, they, etc)? by substitute forms ( do, so, etc)? or
ellipsis?

- Alternatively, is any use made of elegant variation [the avoidance of repetition by the substitution of a descriptive
phrase (e.g. ‘the old lawyer’, ‘her uncle’ ‘Mr Jones’)]?

-Are meaning connections reinforced by repetition of words and phrases, or by repeatedly using words from the
same semantic field?

Semantic and Lexical level

Lexical categories

[Vocabulary ] General:

-Is the vocabulary simple or complex [i.e. with many morphemes (un-friend-li-ness); see Quirk and Greenbaum
University Grammar]?

- formal or colloquial?
-descriptive or evaluative?

- general or specific?

- How far does the writer make use of the emotive and other associations of words, as opposed to their referential
meaning?

-Does the text contain idiomatic phrases? If so, with what kind of dialect or register [polite/ familiar, spoken /
written, scientific, religious, legal] are these idioms associated?

- Any use of rare or specialized vocabulary?

Are any particular morphological categories noteworthy (e.g. compound words, words with particular suffixes)?

- To what semantic fields do words belong?

Nouns:

- Are nouns abstract or concrete?

- What kind of abstract nouns occur (e.g. nouns referring to events, perceptions, processes, moral qualities, social
qualities)?

- What use is made of proper names? collective nouns?

Adjectives:

- Are the adjectives frequent?

- To what kinds of attribute do adjectives refer: physical, psychological, visual, auditory, colour, referential,
emotive, evaluative?

- Are adjectives restrictive or non-restrictive? gradable or non-gradable?

- Are adjectives attributive or predicative?

Verbs:

- do the verbs carry an important part of the meaning?

- are they stative (referring to states) or dynamic (referring to actions, events, etc)?

- Do verbs ‘refer’ to movements, physical acts, speech acts, psychological states or activities, perceptions?

- Are verbs transitive, intransitive, linking (intensive)?

- Are verbs factive or non-factive [factive: presupposing the truth of what is being asserted (Mary liked the show);
non-factive: leaving the question of truth open (I believe that Mary liked the show)?

Adverbs:

- Are adverbs frequent?

- What semantic functions do they perform (manner, place, direction, time, degree)?

- Is there any significant use of sentence adverbs (conjuncts such as so, therefore, however, disjuncts such as
certainly, obviously, frankly)?

Mood and tone

Theme and mood …

Mood and lexical groups …

Imagery: its grammar …

Figures of speech

(features which are foregrounded by virtue of departing in some way from general norms of communication;
exploitation of regularities of formal patterning or of deviations from the linguistic code)

Tropes [=foregrounded irregularities of content]

-Are there any obvious violations of, or departures from the linguistic code?

- Any neologisms, deviant lexical collocations (e.g. portentous infants)?

-Any semantic, syntactic, phonological, or graphological deviations?

- What kind of special interpretation is involved in tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, paradox, irony
(e.g. metaphor can be classified as personifying, animizing, concretising, synaesthetic, etc)

- Does the text contain any similes or similar constructions (e.g. ‘as if’ constructions)

- What dissimilar semantic fields are related through simile?

Morphosyntactic level

Grammatical categories

Sentence types:

- Are there only declarative sentences (statements), or also questions, commands, exclamations, or minor sentence
types (such as verbless sentences)?

- If these other types are used, what is their function?

Sentence complexity:

- Do sentences on the whole have a simple or a complex structure?

- what is the average sentence length (in number of words)?

- What is the ratio of dependent to independent clauses?

- Does complexity vary strikingly from one sentence to another?

- Is complexity mainly due to (i) coordination, (ii) subordination, (iii) parataxis (juxtaposition of clauses or other
equivalent structures)?

- In what parts of a sentence does complexity tend to occur?

- For instance, is there any notable occurrence of anticipatory structure (e.g. of complex subjects preceding the
verbs, of dependent clauses preceding the subject of a main clause [these anticipatory or parenthetic structures cause
delaying of the main ‘information point’]

Clause types:
- What types of dependent clauses are favoured: relative clauses, adverbial clauses, different types of nominal
clauses (that-clauses, wh-clauses, etc)?

- Are reduced or non-finite clauses commonly used? If so, of what type are they (infinitive clauses, -ing or gerund
clauses, -ed or participial clauses, verbless clauses)?

Clause structure:

- Is there anything significant about clause elements (e.g. frequency of objects, complements, adverbials; of
transitive or intransitive verb constructions [see Quirk and Greenbaum University Grammar 7.1-17, and 12])

- Are there any unusual orderings (initial adverbials, fronting of object or complement, etc.)?

- Do special kinds of clause construction occur (such as those with preparatory it or there)?

Noun phrases:

-Are they relatively simple or complex?

- Where does the complexity lie (in premodification by adjectives, nouns, etc., or in postmodification by
prepositional phrases, relative clauses, etc)?

-Note occurrence of listings (eg. sequence of adjectives), coordination, or apposition.

Verb phrases:

-Are there any significant departures from the use of simple past tense? For example, notice occurrences and
functions of the present tense, of the progressive aspect (e.g. was lying); of the perfective aspect (e.g. has / had
appeared); of modal auxiliaries (e.g. can, must, would, etc)

Other phrase types:

- Is there anything to be said about other phrase types: prepositional phrases, adverb phrases, adjective phrases?

[Minor] Word classes [‘function words’: prepositions, conjunction, pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries,
interjections]:

-Are particular ‘function words’ used for particular effect (e.g. the definite or indefinite article; first person pronouns
I, we etc; demonstratives this , that; negative words not, nothing, no)?

General:

-Any general type of grammatical construction used to special effect; e.g. comparative or superlative constructions,
coordinative or listing constructions, parenthetical constructions, appended or interpolated structures such as occur
in casual speech.

-Do lists and coordinations (e.g. list of nouns) tend to occur with two, three or more than three members?

Grammar

Similar sets

Figures of speech

(features which are foregrounded by virtue of departing in some way from general norms of communication;
exploitation of regularities of formal patterning or of deviations from the linguistic code)

Grammatical and lexical schemes: [scheme= foregrounded repetitions of expression]

- structural repetition: anaphora, parallelism,

-mirror-image structure: chiasmus

- Is the rhetorical effect of these one of antithesis, reinforcement, climax, anticlimax []?

Expressive dynamism

[[definition= adequating syntax to content, to lyrical enunciation]]

syntax has expressive effect if adapted to the content

Positive: speed, swiftness, agility

Negative: slow, static,

Each dynamism depends on grammar categories, nature of clauses and periods

Positive: autnomomous elements, nouns and verbs, simple clauses, conative and exclamative tone

Negative: non-autonomous elements (modifiers, adjectives and adverbs, complex subordinated clauses, reiterations,
comparisons

POSITIVE DYNAMISM

NEGATIVE DYNAMISM

Phonic level

FIGURES OF SPEECH

(features which are foregrounded by virtue of departing in some way from general norms of communication;
exploitation of regularities of formal patterning or of deviations from the linguistic

Phonological schemes:

-Any phonological patterns of rhyme, alliteration, assonance?

-Are there any salient rhythmical patterns?

-Do vowel and consonant sounds pattern or cluster in particular ways?

-How these phonological features interact with meaning?

Meter

[See http://www.uv.es/tronch/stu/GuideEnglishProsody.html ]

Identify stanzas by looking at three elements:

- number of lines: 2, 3, 4, etc. or indefinite number

- rhyme pattern or scheme: combinations of rhymes,

e.g. four lines rhyming a b b a

- line length: e.g. trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter

Scan the lines of the poem, that is, measure its rhythm (by marking the rhythmical or metrical units in the line) in
order to analyse and interpret its meter

1.- perceive the dominant rhythm (iambic, trochaic, spondaic, etc.)

“take the poem as a whole and not merely a line at a time, for the lines may not be metrically identical ... get a sense
of the basic pattern. Always one should read a poem aloud, at least several times, to establish the initial
acquaintance” (B&W 505)

2.- mark the natural accents in each the line, and count the number of syllables

3.- try to mark the foot divisions of the line metrical pattern that will best fit the dominant rhythm, number of
accents, and number of syllables. (For instance, a dominant iambic rhythm will lead you to think of two-syllable
feet; if you count five stresses and ten (or eleven, or nine) syllables, you can try the pattern of iambic pentameter)

3a. take into account sound and not writing governs rhythm, and therefore feet do not necessarily correspond to
word divisions (see ‘lonesome’ in “It was níght / in the lóne/some ...”

3b. “meter cannot violate the natural accentuation of a word” (B&W 498). Never impose a preconceived
hypothesized metrical pattern on the natural stresses of the line. For instance, ‘primeval’ is naturally accented
‘priméval’. You can’t accent it as ‘prímeval’ is you are trying an iambic pentameter pattern in “This ís / the fór/est
prí/meval ...”

3c. not all accents in a line have equal force, but what matters is the contrast between less accented syllables and
more stressed syllables

3d. A good working guideline, but not an absolute principle, is that unimportant words receive less accent while key
words in the line are accented (B&W 499)

4.- when marking foot divisions, take into account accepted or expected variations or licences from the metrical
pattern (see corresponding section)

5.- observe the caesura or internal pause marking the end of a sense unit - not a metrical unit (B&W 511). Note that
the caesura may occur in the middle of a foot: “Its lóve/linéss/ incréa/ses | ít / will néver” (J. Keats)

6.- observe the enjambment(s) or run-on lines.

7.- examine and explain the effect of regularities and irregularities, both those changes that are accepted or expected,
and those that are not. Explain how variations “give expression and vitality to the verse” (B&P 53)