Literary Analysis: Two Authors, Two Purposes

Two authors, two purposes

Prose Literature B is unusual, and the unusual thing is also the way into it. Its two set passages are not by the same author and are not about the same thing. One is history, narrating a scandal towards its end. The other is a letter, describing a man through his working habits. That means the same technique can appear in both and be doing completely opposite work. Which is why the sentence that earns nothing in this paper is the one most students write first: naming the technique. The mark is for what it achieves for the author who chose it.

The devices, recapped

You met these in the Prose Literature A module. They are listed here so the names are to hand, not to be learned again.

Not your set text

Read this before going further. The short Latin phrases in this module are ORIGINAL and were written for practice. They are NOT from Tacitus, they are NOT from Pliny, and they are NOT the passages you have been set. They exist so that a technique can be looked at without reproducing text this module cannot verify or print. The prescribed passages change with the examination cycle, and yours must be studied in your own edition, with your teacher. What transfers from here is the METHOD, and the method is the same whatever your cycle sets.

Purpose to expectation

History and letter

Everything in this paper follows from what each author was trying to do. Neither column is a better kind of writing; they are answers to different problems.

Which author is this?

A passage piles up short factual details about how someone spent each part of the day, one after another, with no rise in tension. Which of the two set passages is this more likely to be, and why?

• The letter, because accumulating detail builds a picture of a person
• The history, because a historian records what happened in factual detail
• Either, because both authors record details of what people did
• Neither, because a list of details is not a literary technique at all

What an analysis needs

Select the TWO things an analysis sentence must contain to earn credit in this paper.

• A specific word or phrase from the passage, quoted
• What the effect achieves for what the author was trying to do
• The name of the technique, correctly spelled
• A full translation of the sentence the phrase came from

Naming without explaining

Three of these sentences would earn credit. Select the ONE that names a technique without saying what it does.

• The three verbs run on without connectives, which quickens the pace as the outcome nears.
• The author uses asyndeton here, which is a well-known feature of his style.
• Placing the verb last holds the action back, so the reader waits for it.
• The present tense puts the scene in front of us as though it were happening now.

Order the analysis

These four parts make one analysis sentence. Put them into the order that works.

• Quote the specific Latin word or phrase you are discussing
• Name what the author has done with it
• Say what effect that has on the reader
• Connect that effect to what the author was trying to achieve

The language of analysis

A strong analysis begins with a _____ from the passage rather than a general statement. It then says what the author has done, and only then what the _____ on the reader is. The final move, and the one most answers miss, is to link that back to the author _____. Naming a device without doing this earns _____, because it could be said of almost any writer. Remember that the same device can serve opposite ends in two different _____.

Same device, different work

Here are two ORIGINAL practice phrases, not from either set text. In a narrative: sequuntur, cogunt, puniunt, meaning they follow, they compel, they punish. In a description of a person: manet, cogitat, loquitur, meaning he stays, he thinks, he speaks. Both are asyndetic tricola of verbs. What is the difference in what they achieve?

• The first accelerates towards an outcome; the second accumulates to build a character
• Nothing, because the same device always produces the same effect on a reader
• The first is more emphatic because its verbs are in the third person plural
• The second is weaker because describing a person is less dramatic than a narrative

One device, analysed twice

Both phrases below are ORIGINAL practice, not set text. First: sequuntur, cogunt, puniunt. Model analysis: the three verbs are set side by side with no connective between them, so nothing slows the reader between one action and the next, and the effect is of events following faster than anyone can intervene, which suits a historian carrying a reader towards an outcome that cannot now be stopped. Second: manet, cogitat, loquitur. Model analysis: the same absence of connectives here does something quite different, because the three verbs describe habits rather than events, so instead of accelerating they accumulate, and the effect is of a man whose day is entirely filled, which is exactly the impression a letter praising his industry would want to create. Note that the technique was named identically both times and the marks came from everything after that.

Reading for purpose

You are working through an unseen prose passage in the manner of one of these authors. Decide what to do at each point.

• You notice the clauses get shorter towards the end of the passage. What is the first question to ask?
• The passage turns out to be a letter describing someone. How does that change your reading?
• You have found a striking word placed at the very end of its clause. What earns the mark?
• You have three minutes left and two points written. What is the best use of them?

Analyse your own passage

Open your own edition at the passage you have been set and choose one short phrase from it. Write an analysis of that phrase using the four-part shape from this module. Nobody here can see your text, so what is being practised is the SHAPE of the analysis.

• Quote the Latin phrase you have chosen, and give its meaning in English
• Say what the author has done with it, naming the technique if there is one
• Explain the effect that has on a reader
• Connect that effect to what the author was trying to achieve in this passage
• Say whether your passage is the history or the letter, and how that shaped your answer