Summary of “Tackling Textuality - With Theory” by Peter Barry
Keywords:
• Close Reading
• Literary Theory
• Micro- and Macro Patterns
• Meaning vs. Significance
• Linguistic Period
• Metaphorical or Literal Reading
• Deconstructive Reading
Peter Barry starts of by explaining how the new ‘A’ level specifications have a double message; teachers are to be aware of the development of the range of literary studies, and close reading is central in the study of literary. Normally, we understand a text by close reading and do not think of any specific literary theory, but due to these new specifications, teachers and critics are now obligated to think of both.
Further, he discusses ten different ways readers and critics take on literary texts: overall structural patterns, similarity beneath apparent dissimilarity, distinguish between overt and covert content, distinguish between meaning and significance, terms of genre or literary type, how we read literal as metaphorical, how we read the surface of the work accurately, patterns in literary works, stages and phases within a literary work and finally how we read in linguistic period, aware of semantic change. These ten ways of understanding a text are necessary; they are impossible to exclude. However, they are not enough. Since these ten mainly focus on the text itself, we never get to consider the relationship between the literature and our surrounding, something theory helps us do.
Barry uses Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 as an example to show the different theory aspects (literature and history, literature and language, literature and gender, literature and psychoanalysis). Here he tells about how certain things in the text can have different meanings just by looking at different clues. By analysing a text, or in this case a sonnet, it awakens new questions we probably would not think of else and gives us an urge to discuss and find the meaning of these unanswered questions. One example in literature and gender is when Barry mentions the common question “what are the signs in this poem that it is written by a man rather than a woman?” Here he argues that the sonnet is written by a man because there are some words that would be unlikely for a female speaker to associate herself with. Without theory, we would probably not be able to recognize this relationship between gender and language.
To emphasize his arguments Barry chooses to give a clearer and a more solid explanation of one of the theories, literature and language. Here he discusses “what is deconstruction?” contra close reading. A deconstruction text has a war within, which is shown by “contradictions, quirks and aporia, shifts or breaks (in tone, viewpoint, tense, person, attitude, etc.) and absences or omissions”. In the poems 'Oread' (Hilda Doolittle) and 'Transit' (Adrienne Rich ) we see how deconstruction texts might look like. ‘Oread’ is an unreadable poem, words that are put together and make no sense to us, and ‘Transit’ contains all signs of a deconstruction text, mentioned above. While ‘Oread’ makes no sense, ‘Transit’ keeps fighting itself all the way through.
As a conclusion to why we continue using literary theory, despite the fact that it just brings us to new questions, Barry writes: ”Firstly, the complexities it gets itself knotted up in really are there. And secondly, trying to unravel them is enlightening, and sometimes even fun.”
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The summary starts with very good key words, which gives immediately the reader a picture of the focus in this summary. They also give a good overall purpose of the original. Though, there is a bit of source information that is lacking. Only the author of the work is given and the reader cannot know where and why the original text is published.
SvaraRaderaThe summary continues then with Peter Barry’s different explanations about which ways different readers and literary critics take a written text. What the summary doesn’t go in to is whether the text is supposed to be causal, argumentative or proposal. There is no indication of which category the text presents, but I am not sure if that is necessary.
Every paragraph works very good as a contraction of the long original paragraphs. The paragraphs read up on the main and minor causes and give short, clear explanations to Peter Barry’s original text. The summary is splendid in its way to not give any opinions or personal thoughts about the writer of original. The text in the summary is neutral and explains only the matters of given original text.
Summing up the summery is very informative in spite of its brevity. The clauses and sentences are clearly marked with quotations marks where they are needed. Italicising makes the coherence more distinct and shows relationship between main and minor causes.
It gave me as a reader a good, clear and compress image of Peter Barry’s´ original text.
It is astonishing how much of to the original content you manage to compress in your summary! /Marja
You have done a good summary of Barry’s article, Vicky!
SvaraRaderaYou have very informative keywords and you give a clear view of what the article is about in your first paragraph. You tell the reader about the ten check-points and that they could not be excluded as well as the four aspects needed to complete a literary analysis. You also refer to the author of the text and shows that it is not your own thoughts you explain in your summary and you make the reader sure about which words being the authors own by quotation marks.
However, I noticed a couple of excluded things in your text such as a reference of where to find the original text and when it was written. Secondly I miss some explanations about the ten check-points because it is words an uninitiated person can find rather difficult to understand.
You make a good description about close reading and deconstructive reading by referring to the two texts Barry uses and the differences in how the two ways of reading is accomplished. As I said before - you have done a very good and understandable paraphrasing of the article.