TWO FORMS OF CRITICISM

EXPLICATION AND ANALYSIS

What is an explication?

A line-by-line or episode-by-episode commentary on what is going on in a text (literally, unfolding or spreading out).

It does not deal with the writer’s life or times, and it is not a paraphrase or rewording. Rather, it is a commentary revealing your sense of the meaning of the work.

Explication is a method used primarily in the study of fairly short poems or brief extracts from essays, stories, novels, and plays.

It calls attention to the implications of words, the function of rhymes, the shifts in point of view, the development of contrasts, and any other contributions to the meaning. One will explicate only a paragraph or at most a page of the novel, and a speech or two of the play.

What is analysing?

While explication is used primarily in the study of fairly short poems or brief extracts from essays, stories, novels, and plays, analysing is a method used in writing about works longer than a page or two. It is literally, separating into parts in order to better understand the whole.

An analysis of The Colour Purple may consider the functions of the setting; an analysis of Hamlet may consider the comic passages, or the reasons for Hamlet’s delay; an analysis of Death of a Salesman may consider the depiction of women, or the causes of Willy Loman’s failure.

An analysis can consider all or almost all of the story’s parts and therefore the analysis can seem relatively complete.

It is concerned with seeing the relationships between the parts of a work, but also may take note of what is not in the work. It frequently involves comparing when things are examined for their resemblances to and differences from other things.

How do you write an effective essay?

The writing process may be divided into 4 stages:

Pre-writing: read the work carefully,

annotate, jot down notes or early responses to the work

Drafting: you not only discuss your topic but a thesis. Get it down on paper. The order in an explication is essentially the order of the lines or of the episodes. In an analysis, the essay is organised from the lesser material to the greater (to avoid anticlimax) or from the simple to the complex (to ensure intelligibility).

Revising: pay special attention to the title, the opening, the thesis and the organisation, and the closing.

Editing: revision, check spelling, punctuation, and accuracy of quotations. The whole process of writing about literature is really a process of responding and of revising one’s responses—not only to the work of literature but also to one’s own writing about those responses.