There’s no right way to read a book. In fact, there are countless lenses of interpretation to choose from.
Getting acquainted with the toolbox of literary criticism can be the key to unlocking better grades, knowledge, and understanding throughout your education.
For almost all Queen’s students, reading is central to the learning process, regardless of their program. Literature is paramount and inseparable from education, so it’s no surprise students are expected to become machine-like readers as courses ramp up throughout the semester.
At this time of year, students often find themselves blowing through dense readings at lightning pace to keep up with their demanding course load and tight schedules. To meet deadlines, some resort to reading texts solely to extract the necessary data or information to complete assignments.
However, opening the toolbox of literary criticism and analysis can be a brilliant way to read better—without relying on popular shortcuts like artificial intelligence for help. To enhance one’s reading experience, a text can be read through four major analytic lenses: the text itself, the author, the audience, and the broader context.
The beauty of literary criticism is its versatility. Anyone can choose from endless lenses and employ them as tools in their studies. There’s no singular right way to read, but the best way to go about the business is to practice reading through different schools of thought.
Employing any one of these critical lenses can help you absorb a text better and enjoy the process. No literary theory or critical lens is superior to another—it’s a matter of preference and pertinence to the select text. Personally, apart from the standardized close reading, I like to focus on the author.
The swift pace of literature-heavy university courses, though a venerable undertaking for students, often comes with a certain detriment: insufficient time spent getting to know authors.
Though understandably marginalized in the long list of deadlines on a busy student’s plate, an aspect of the humanities that’s ironically forgotten all too often is the human behind the art.
It’s a luxury when courses spend valuable time diving into the histories of the authors they study. It’s the very information that gets me excited to read and the knowledge that helps me understand a book better.
The next time you pick up a book, give the author a search, I assure you it will make your time spent reading much more enjoyable. Details about the writer’s life behind the pages, even if seemingly trivial and anecdotal, hold great potential in enlightening readers and opening them to the world of the text. Doing just a bit of background research is more rewarding than you think.
From a quick search, I discovered Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein during the year there was no summer, when a major volcanic eruption turned the skies black all across Europe. J.R.R. Tolkien, known for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, spoke 15 languages and served in the British army in WWI. Meanwhile, Kurt Vonnegut’s, best known for Slaughterhouse-Five, graduate thesis was famously rejected at the University of Chicago while he was pursuing a master’s in anthropology.
Knowing more about an author changes the way we read their books. Many authors have exciting lives and, after all, it’s their very lives that inform their work. If you purport to be in the field of humanities, a bibliophile, or even just a hobby reader, don’t forget about the hard-working humans behind the books you read.
Elizabeth is a second-year Film and English student and The Journal’s Assistant Video Editor.
Tags
humanities, literary criticism, Literature, novel studies, Reading
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