Critical interpretation :

A matter of perspective
 READING & INTERPRETING LITERATURE

When you write about literature, you participate actively in the

construction of knowledge about the text. That is to say, the text itself
creates only part of its message. The writer of the work has done his or
her part to convey its meaning by using symbols, language, setting, plot,
character, foreshadowing, and the like, to suggest the text’s message.
Unlike “hard sciences,” however, literature cannot be empirically tested in
the laboratory; its meaning comes from its readers. In fact, literature
begs for readers to read, react to, think about, and interpret the text. Having engaged
in those steps, the process continues with another step: communicating
to others the meaning thatyou as a reader has constructed from the text.
Your interpretation and analysis, then, add to the body of meaning about
the text.
2. The critical reading skills that you bring to reading short stories, poems, novels, plays,
as well as non-fiction, are the same types of critical reading strategies that serve you
well in any other type of reading that you do—whether it be reading a computer
manual, a biology text, a legal document, or the like.

3. In order to write well about literature, you must be able to read the text closely,
looking at its structure, the words the author has chosen, the characters’
motivations, the patterns of language and literary devices.
4. However, in either case—reading a piece of literature or a technical document—you
read closely and carefully, looking at not only what the writer is saying, but also
looking at why it’s being said and how it’s being said.

5. Furthermore, the critical reading strategies that you employ in reading literature
heighten your sense of observation and draw upon your life skills.

6. For instance, as you read a literary text and notice the characters, you have to think
about and respond to each character’s motivation. (Why did she do that? What
makes her “tick”?) Reading literature, then, enhances your critical reading skills.
 READING THROUGH DIFFERENT LENS:
DEVICES OF INTERPRETATON

Literary perspectives help us explain why people might interpret the same text in
different ways. Perspectives help us understand what is important to individual readers,
and they show us why those readers end up seeing what they see. One way to imagine
a literary perspective is to think of it as a lens through which we can examine a text.
No single lens gives us the clearest view, but it is sometimes fun to read a text with a
particular perspective in mind because you often end up discovering something
intriguing and unexpected. While readers typically apply more than one perspective at a
time, the best way to understand these perspectives is to employ them one at a time.
• How do I respond?
• My feelings?

• What does this work mean to me, in my present intellectual & moral makeup?
• What particular aspects of my life may help me understand and appreciate the work?
How well does the text address things that I, personally, care about and consider
important to the world?
 Reader Response and (Text)

Context
• (What factors surrounding my reading of the text are influencing my
response?)

Reader - Meaning - Text

• (What personal qualities or events relevant to this particular

book/story/text might influence my response?)
• (What textual features might influence my response?)
ORIGINS
The End