Close Reading: Finding Fingerprints

CLOSE READING is the analysis of very small details in the text: vocabulary choices, uses of figurative language, repetition of words, phrases, and other details. When you close read, you pay more attention to the words themselves than to the larger ideas of a text.

• When you write a summary of a text, you describe what happens.
• When you interpret a text, you make an argument about its larger meaning—this is your interpretation or your analysis. You need evidence to support your interpretation, and this comes from close reading.
• When you close read a portion of a larger text, you pay more attention to how the language and specific words in a sentence contribute to the larger meaning or interpretation. A close reading offers your reader an explanation of how particular words and language in a text support your interpretation.

Similarly, when a lawyer argues her case to a judge or jury, she will probably first offer a summary of the details. Then she will present her own interpretation of events—an interpretation that benefits her client. However, as we know, no lawyer is going to win her case on an interpretation alone; she needs concrete evidence—such as fingerprints—to support her claims. Just as fingerprints are unique to every individual person, a particular language and style is unique to every individual text, and close reading is the act of finding the fingerprints of a text to support your interpretation.

EXAMPLE: Below are the first six lines of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life . . .

Summary:
Romeo and Juliet begins with a description of how the two lovers are doomed because a feud rooted in politics and family. The love between Romeo and Juliet will never succeed.

Interpretation:
Even though it’s true that Romeo’s and Juliet’s families have been feuding forever, the real reason they are doomed is because it is their fate. Nothing can change the outcome of the story, even if their families repair their relations.

Interpretation + Close Reading (+ a fingerprint!):
The phrase “star-crossed lovers” suggests that Romeo and Juliet ultimately have no control over their situation, and neither does anyone else in the play. The lovers’ fates have already been determined by the stars, which imply the heavens and a higher power. Therefore, even if the feud was ended, it wouldn’t matter; Romeo and Juliet are doomed.