Let’s start with points of convergence. Like Jonathan Kramnick, John Guillory posits close reading as a skill or technê, a form of acquired know-how or expertise.Like Kramnick, Guillory emphasizes that close reading is not just reading closely. It’s a distinctive form of intellectual work whose product is verbal or textual: an account of an ur-text whose words it explicates.They agree that close reading is central, perhaps essential, to literary studies—and that it resists definition.
This is a curious topic. The name "Eliot" caught my attention, as it is mentioned in relation to the origins of close reading. But I am still uncertain what it means. The title, "Proximity," actually does help to get an image. When I think of Aesthetics, I rather think of Kant, of all people. It was an idea in Critique of Judgement that my memory only allows me to paraphrase: that the value of art lies in the extent to which it exhibits or refers to (i.e., indicates) intrinsic value. Well, we all do what we can.
Teaching close reading seems to be by example or imitation. Can you provide a small example here:
Thanks for the share! Close reading, it seems by your description, is less a method than a mirror —- reflecting not just the poem, but the posture of the reader peering in. Will have a coffee on this.
This is a curious topic. The name "Eliot" caught my attention, as it is mentioned in relation to the origins of close reading. But I am still uncertain what it means. The title, "Proximity," actually does help to get an image. When I think of Aesthetics, I rather think of Kant, of all people. It was an idea in Critique of Judgement that my memory only allows me to paraphrase: that the value of art lies in the extent to which it exhibits or refers to (i.e., indicates) intrinsic value. Well, we all do what we can.
Teaching close reading seems to be by example or imitation. Can you provide a small example here:
https://burnteliot.substack.com/p/the-rain-19
Or do I presume to much? This is a bit unfamiliar to me.
B.E.
Edit: ... that is, can you make such a small example, Kramnick notwithstanding, if that makes any sense?
Thanks for the share! Close reading, it seems by your description, is less a method than a mirror —- reflecting not just the poem, but the posture of the reader peering in. Will have a coffee on this.
Kind of fascinated by the idea of close reading just because it’s what Andrea Nye thinks I’m supposed to be doing instead of logic.