Assignment 5

Mr. Barry is basically telling us how we deal with texts through ten rules/elements of interpretation, and he states that we cannot deal with literary texts without these ten rules/elements. Mr. Barry is also explaining each rule/element, and gives examples for each for the reader to relate to. The rules/elements Mr. Barry presents are:

1: We actively search for general structure patterns, so that we can figure out the whole idea behind the text.

2: Things and situations are not always how we first think they are; one character can appear with various treats and attributes but when we are finished with the text we may see that they are not what we first thought they were.

3: We notice if there is a deeper meaning beneath the surface of a text: it can make the difference between a good and bad text.

4: There is a difference between meaning and significance.

5: We acknowledge the fact that the time when the text was written plays a vital role for the content of the text. Certain periods and genres have certain literary features, and we use this knowledge to our advantage.

6: We expect to find metaphors while reading literature, especially while reading poems.

7: Even if we expect to find metaphors in literature, we know to take words literally as well and not speculate too much about them.

8: We look for small patterns, not altering the structure in texts, as well as big patterns; such as a streak of words with the same tone.

9: We are aware of new stages in texts, such as jumps of different kinds; a character may just have realized something of importance and change her/his stance on a certain subject.

10: At last, we are aware of the meaning of words and word order, and react when they appear to be out of place.

After introducing and describing these rules/elements, Mr. Barry starts to analyse a poem from Shakespeare to get his next point across. What he's saying here is that theory can help us when considering different aspects of relationships between literature and the world beyond, illustrated in Sonnet 73 by Shakespeare. Mr. Barry then answers various questions about the poem, and shows the reader just how many questions one poem may raise while analysing it, especially the metaphors.

He proceeds to his next idea, and strengthens it with the same Sonnet, he used in his previous paragraph, from Shakespeare: Sonnet 73. He here tells us how we react when we find text not using the common word order and what the use of another word order can mean. This would, according to Barry, indicate some sort of a "NOT!" sentence. (Compare for example: "I'm gone with the breeze" versus "I'm with the breeze gone". The latter would here indicate that I'm not or what?) Barry also tells us to search for counter-currents in literature, as it helps when reading literature.

He continues with the same Sonnet, and deals with the question whether the author is female or male. This, he says, is easy to tell by looking at how the poem is written. If the author is using typical male associated word choices it's fairly safe to say that the author is male and vice versa.

Mr. Barry then reminds us what his text has dealt with thus far, and goes back to the relation between literature and language. He presents his idea, and supports it with quotes from various books and texts. He then shows how his idea works in practise by using another poem and analysing it before finally concluding "Literary theory often intensifies the difficulties of reading, and constantly throws up more problems than it is capable of solving" and asks us why we are doing it. We do it because it is fun and challenging according to Peter Barry.

Keywords

Look: This text tells us what to look for and why we are looking for that particular thing while reading.

Ten elements of interpretation: Peter Barry could probably have made it nine or even eleven, but chose ten. This is probably to emphasize the importance of these elements, because ten is a number connected to holy and important ideas such as the Ten Commandments.

Relationship: Mr. Barry is writing about the relationship between literature and gender, language, psychoanalysis and history. Barry bases his theories around these relationships and tells us how these are related to reading and analysing literature

Sonnet 73: This Sonnet is central in Barry's text. He is using it to great effect when illustrating his ideas and points.

Difficulties: Barry is using this argument to wrap up his text, and makes a good ending to his text with it; why do we read when it is difficult? Again, we do it because it is fun and whatnot.