Writing commentaries: a workshop

1. Writing commentaries: a workshop

2. Why commentary? • Close reading skills essential at every stage (and in later life!) • This form of assessment is also present in other Honours level modules • We have been exploring strategies for reading texts, and close reading is one such

3. Close reading, structuralism and post-structuralism (Barry, p. 70) The structuralist seeks The post-structuralist seeks Contradictions/Paradoxes Shifts/Breaks in: Tone Viewpoint Time Person Tense Conflicts Absences/omissions Linguistic quirks Aporia Effect: to show textual disunity • Parallels/Echoes • Balances • Reflections/repetitions • Symmetry • Contrasts • Patterns • Effect: to show textual unity and coherence

4. The role of the narrator • First person • 3rd person • Intrusive? • Absent? • Free indirect speech (style indirect libre): merging of voices of narrator with character • Ironic • Playful • Omniscient?

5. Commentary… Overall: • Form / genre • Tone/mood • Descriptive / active • Speech? • character • Conflict? • Direction of text / changes / repetitions / circular or linear development? • Narrative – 1st / 3rd person? In more detail: • Vocabulary: lexical fields / connotations • Imagery: macabre / sinister? Light? Metaphor and simile? Symbolism? • Rhythm / musicality: assonance and alliteration? Sound effects? • Syntax: complex or simple? Tenses? Repetitions? Rhetorical devices • Parallels and contrasts • Irony • symbolism • Narrative: interjections? (study skills handbook, p. 17)

6. Sources of information • Departmental web pages: • http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/currentstudents/undergraduate/french/modules/firstyear/strategies/formative/commesswriting • http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/currentstudents/undergraduate/french/assessment/commentarywriting

7. Sources of information Other French departments: • Cambridge: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/courses/ugrad/Fr1_commentary.pdf • Bristol: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/french/current/undergrad/infoyr1students/commentary.pdf

8. Sources of information on rhetorical and stylistic devices • http://www.etudes-litteraires.com/bac-francais/figures-de-style.php • https://mcl.as.uky.edu/glossary-rhetorical-terms • http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/classroom/ terms.htm • http://0-www.oxfordreference.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acref/9780199208272.001.0001/acref-9780199208272-e-1095 (Oxford Dictionary of LiteraryTerms) • Cuddon, LiteraryTerms and LiteraryTheory(Penguin: London, 1999) • Glossary on departmental commentary page

9. What not to do!! • You are not providing an inventory of technical devices. • NEVER make reference to a technique or approach if you cannot then link it specifically to the sense and meaning of the text. • Do not turn your commentary into an essay: your focus is on the passage in front of you, not on the work as a whole.

10. Remember… • Your passage is the springboard for everything you say. If you cannot trace a remark back to a specific formal feature in the passage, DON’T say it. • You are trying to get behind the mind of the writer when s/he constructed the text: • HOW is a mood conveyed? • HOW are changes indicated? • WHAT, technically, is the writer doing to make his/her words have the effect on me that they have?

11. Things that will make your marker cry… • ‘There is alliteration in line 4.’ • ‘The writer uses lots of imagery.’ • ‘The main theme in this passage comes up repeatedly in this work, where it is used to …’

12. Things that will make your marker happy… • ‘The repetition of the harsh sounding ‘d’ consonant in line 5 serves to underline the determination of the character…’ • ‘There is a sudden change of tense in paragraph 2, indicating a move from reflection to action on the part of…’

13. Some useful terms Consonant sounds • Fricative (f, v) • Dental (d, t) • Plosive (p, b) • Guttural (c, k, g) • Sibilant (s, z) Ways of looking at syntax • Most sentences have subject : verb : object. What about deviations from this? • Hypotaxis (hypotactic, adj) = use of logical connectives such as ‘because’ • Parataxis (paratactic, adj) = absence of connectives

14. Methods • Organise your material by themes / motifs / devices; OR • Analyse the passage chronologically (not line by line, but section by section) • Tell your reader in your introduction how you will proceed (‘annonce du plan’) • Use line numbers. • Do not paraphrase or translate the text. Quote if necessary (in French). Your job is to interpret / analyse.

15. Over to you INTRODUCTION • Context • Overview of content and shape / form: DETAILED ANALYSIS • What might an analysis by theme look like? • What might a chronological analysis show? CONCLUSION 1. How important is this passage for the work as a whole? Where does it take us?

16. Thoughts about style in Condé • Adult and child selves • Intertextuality – books • Créôle • Autobiography?

17. Condé INTRODUCTION • Later part of text; teenage years; thorny relationship with parents; identity crisis • Passage presents us with contrasting states (before and after moped). Claustrophia of home and isolation / introspection give way to wider vista of island; outward looking / optimistic. Geography and space become important. • No conversation: personal reflection

18. Detailed analysis Themes / motifs Chronology Para 1: stagnation / depression Movement from self exam (mirror) to exam of social self (home, school, society). Claustrophobia Para 2: Movement and memory Journey / distance Childhood journey contrast • Loneliness • Self-criticism • Family and status • Journey / discovery / liberation • Reading / story

19. Formal and content • Temporal clauses: ‘A quinzeans / unefoisque/ pendant les grandesvacances’ • Use of tense: stagnation / description : imperfect; movement / action: past historic • Focus / detail: ‘camera angle’; narrow to wide angle. How are facial features presented? Fragmentation of self: not sentences (no verbs; just adjectives)

20. Physical / psychological : body criticism; personality criticism. Parallels: ‘laide/parure; intelligence, méchanceté’ • Isolation: parallels (plus d’amiesqued’admirateurs’) • Journey (para 2): lots of verbs (+ve); contrast of action of Maryse with description of landscape • Family picture : comic / critical (clothing para 2; snobbery para 1)

21. Literature / intertext: adult analysis. Reflection on being on cusp of adulthood (rêve; désir) • Pays / paysage: contrast of childhood self with (ridiculous) family and adolescent self with islanders. New identity?

22. Conclusion • Prefigures wider journeys, both literary and actual, in final chapter. Burgeoning sense of independence that will need to grow after death of mother. • Note, though, that despite excitement in evidence here, ch ends with Maryse returning home and embracing her mother in bed: spirit of adventure only goes so far…?

23. Candide: style • Fast pace (lots of verbs) • Satire • 3rd person narrator, sometimes with 1st person focus… • Use of irony • Enumeration (lists) • Binaries • hyperbole • Two dimensional characterisation

24. Introduction • Concluding part of text • Re-assembing of all major characters • End point of quest • Passage deals with idea of community and contingencies of human relationships • Shows clear intolerance of intolerance: Candide more decisive re Baron (centre point of text) • Mixture of direct speech, omniscient narr and limited 3rd person narr

25. Detailed analysis Themes / motifs: • Class & rank • Philosophy / proof / debate • Suffering • Journey • community Chronology Paras 1 - 2: • Movement from travelling to stasis begins here: end of quest for Cunégonde • Building of community ties • Candide develops a stronger voice Para 3 • End of quest for perfection (‘meilleur des mondes’) • Equality but not inclusivity (baron ejected)

26. Form and content • As it reaches its end, journey still a philosophical one: lexical field of debate; use of binaries to reflect this; use of philosophical jargon; narrative draws reader in (use of ‘on’; ‘cet’). List suggests debate endless… • Journey ends: contrast of male chars and female characters psychology/movement vsemprisonment/body/suffering. Another use of lists emphasizes slavery and its toll on the body • Bathos: love story ironically treated (tendreamant; belle C). Pragmatic end: parataxis

27. Para 2 • New space: métairie: Vieille wise; thoughts turn to domesticity • Baron – class – hierarchy – politics: direct speech used to emphasis his bombast and prejudice. Problem of equality / democracy highlighted with parallel (unetelle / unetelle). Fatuous ideas of empire (comic juxtaposition in context of métairie) • Confidence of Candide(contrast with ch 1 and ch 11). Tutoiement; criticism ‘fou’; contrast via enumeration. Comedy of language (verb retuerqn!)

28. Para 3 • Omniscient narrator: reveals inner workings of C’s soul • Importance of equal debate: points of view sum up key characteristics: Panglossphilosophises (but more productive!); Martin thinks dark thoughts (echoes of fate of Jacques); Cacambo practical. Highlighted with adjectives: ‘beau mémoire’ – irony; fidèle C. Rule of 3. Lexical field of reason (prouvait, conclut, décida, avis, approuva) • Egalitarian community would be troubled by a cleric and an aristocrat: deliberate paralleling in sentence emphasizes this

29. Conclusion • Passage shows slowing of narrative: preparing for new roles • Emphasis on harmony and on democratic decision making • Rejection of the cleric here prefigures rejection of the dervish later in ch 30…