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Power in Literature Short Stories: Part 6 508 Views


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Textual Evidence: “Picking apart quotes is important in literary analysis.” Just make sure you remember how to put them back together again. Now is it, “I know why the caged bird sings” or “the bird I caged sings. Know why?” We’re going with the latter.


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:04

Power in Literature: Textual Evidence

00:07

à la Shmoop.

00:09

So as we think through

00:12

the process of showing and not telling and

00:15

the elements and weapons that writers use to kinda deploy

00:19

their wares, talk to us how that works

00:22

as we analyze things with textual evidence

00:25

What is textual evidence?

00:28

The number one most important thing in literary analysis

00:31

is textual evidence.

00:35

You will see

00:37

high school students, college students, PhD students, professors

00:41

analyze literature and they’re just like,

00:43

"This is what I think happened,"

00:45

and you’re like, “you can’t do that,” you have to say:

00:48

“this is what I think, because…” and then you pull out a quote.

00:52

And you say, “here’s what it says in the book and I’m gonna analyze that.”

00:56

I like to call that "close reading" because you’re reading it closely.

00:59

You’re pulling out a quote and saying “see that word choice?”

01:01

Using that word makes us think that the character is actually feeling this way

01:07

even though you know the author said they’re feeling this way.

01:11

So really picking apart quotes is so important in literary analysis

01:15

and it doesn’t always have to be a quote you can kinda just mention a more

01:18

general concept that's happening in the book

01:20

but if you write an essay and you just go off in your own little world and

01:24

don't bring it back to the text, you're not doing solid literary analysis.

01:28

What is the best way to obtain textual evidence?

01:31

Well because I love literarture I think the best way to read literature

01:35

is just to read it through first.

01:37

Sometimes you don’t have time to read the book twice

01:40

but if you do, I would suggest reading through once

01:43

to just feel it

01:45

that’s how literature was intended.

01:47

Authors don't write books

01:48

expecting students to write term papers about them

01:53

They write them because you know, it evokes this humanity from us

01:56

and makes us feel. So I like to read a story or a book first

02:00

and then I go back and do the underlining and the highlighting, preparing your text

02:05

and picking out key moments.

02:07

Got it, okay

02:08

Okay so that was symbols, settings and themes

02:11

a la Shmoop with Deb Tennen.

02:13

And we’ll look for you on our website.

02:16

Come. Bye

02:20

What is textual evidence? What is the best way to obtain textual evidence?

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