– Analysis means to break apart. So to analyze literature means to break it apart into its constituent parts, to examine the parts, and to consider how the parts help us understand the whole. The “parts” in literature can be detected by considering literary devices, such as character, plot, genre, symbol, theme, etc. In this paper, you’ll select one or two of the plays we’re reading this semester for such an examination. Then you’ll determine what aspect(s) of the plays you’re working with you’re interested in focusing on.
– Once you’ve selected a text or texts that you’d like to work with, you’ll formulate a research question. Research questions must be open-ended; they are not fact-finding expeditions, but rather explorations of subjective aspects of a work. For example, the following question leads us to fact-based information, and on its own will yield nothing more than an informational answer: What is comedy? A better, open- ended question would be: Does the disordering of socio-economic class in Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew ultimately challenge or support class expectations of this time? This question is better because it’s open-ended and involves engaging the play in order to make meaning. We’ll discuss research questions for literary analysis papers during class, but another resource you can consult is the Purdue OWL.
– The role of research in your paper will be to help you explicate different aspects of the piece you’ve selected for analysis. You should not rely solely on other sources to help you do the work of analysis, but you should see what others have to say and then incorporate those points that seem especially significant and valuable.