Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tpknm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-04T16:47:57.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Century of “Close Reading”

Part of: Of the Moment (2025)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2025

Scott Newstok
Scott Newstok*
Affiliation:
Rhodes College – English, Memphis, TN, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Students undertaking a close reading and scholars studying the practice ask the same question: What exactly is “close reading”? While we now associate the phrase with literary critics of the 1930s–1950s, they themselves infrequently invoked it as a term of art. Since then, scholars have struggled to define close reading beyond the vague notion of reading with “attention to the words on the page.” While compiling the bibliography for John Guillory’s book On Close Reading, I created a free online archive, which gathers over 2,500 statements on the practice: www.closereadingarchive.org. In harvesting key quotations from this archive, this cento adheres to Edward Said’s insight: “single phrases” can “contain a whole library of meanings.” What follows is not an explicit argument so much as a roadmap of distilled claims about the topic, with each successive entry sometimes recalling previous ones, or introducing new turns of the subject – all offering provocations to further thought. Whether from critics well known or lesser known, to poets who have commented on the subject, to government reports and school catalogs, the items cumulatively corroborate that close reading has persisted as the heart of the critical enterprise. I hope, of course, that these excerpts entice readers to survey the online archive and thereby assemble their own alternative accounts.

Keywords

Close reading
Type
Brief Report
Information
Public Humanities , Volume 1 , 2025 , e90
Check for updates
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NC
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

[Formatting note: upon the suggestion of editor Jeffrey Wilson, I have introduced the bold highlighting.]

References

Aiken, Conrad, and Blackmur, R. P.. 1932. In A Mingled Yarn: The Life of R. P. Blackmur, edited by Fraser, Russell A.. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Aragon, Louis. 1928. Treatise on Style. Translated by Alyson Waters. University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Isobel. 1995. “Textual Harassment: The Ideology of Close Reading, or How Close is Close?” Textual Practice 9 (3): 401–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502369508582228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 2014. Sex, or the Unbearable. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, Elizabeth, and Lowell, Robert. 1975. In Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Travisano, Thomas and Hamilton, Saskia. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Bleikasten, André. 1990 . The Ink of Melancholy: Faulkner’s Novels, From The Sound and the Fury to Light in August. Indiana University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Harold. 1959. Shelley’s Mythmaking. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Bread Loaf School of English Catalog . 1939.Google Scholar
Brooks, Cleanth. 1947. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Brooks, Van Wyck. 1953. The Writer in America. Avon Books.Google Scholar
Brower, Reuben A., and Poirier, Richard. 1962. “Preface.” In Defense of Reading: A Reader’s Approach to Literary Criticism. Dutton, pp. vii–x.Google Scholar
Brown, Angus Connell. 2017. “Cultural Studies and Close Reading.” PMLA 132 (5): 1187–93. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45179328.Google Scholar
Brown, Marshall. 2024. “How Does a Poem Think?” Modern Philology 122 (1): 49–2. https://doi.org/10.1086/730800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulletin of the Texas State Department of Education . 1936.Google Scholar
Bush, Douglas. 1961. “Literary Scholarship and Criticism.” Liberal Education 47 (2): 207–18.Google Scholar
Buurma, Rachel Sagner, and Heffernan, Laura. 2020. The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, William E. 1982. “The Institutionalization of the New Criticism.” MLN 97 (5): 1100–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/2905979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, Kent. 2021. “Close Reading and New Criticism.” In The Arden Research Handbook of Contemporary Shakespeare Criticism, edited by Arden, Evelyn Gajowski, pp. 21–7.Google Scholar
Cowley, Malcolm. 1950. “The New Criticism.” The American Scholar 20 (1): 86–104. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41205373.Google Scholar
Creed, Howard Hall. 1946“Coleridge on ‘Taste’.” ELH 13 (2): 143–55. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2871595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culler, Jonathan. 1976. “Beyond Interpretation: The Prospects of Contemporary Criticism.” Comparative Literature 28 (3): 244–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/1769220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daiches, David. 1964. English Literature. Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
de Man, Paul. 1971. “The Rhetoric of Blindness: Jacques Derrida’s Reading of Rousseau.” In Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. Routledge, pp. 102–41.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1998. “Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue.” In Questioning Ethics: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy, edited by Kearney, Richard and Dooley, Mark. Routledge, pp. 65–83.Google Scholar
Dowling, William C. 1977. The Critic’s Hornbook: Reading for Interpretation. Crowell.Google Scholar
DuBois, Andrew. 2003. “Introduction.” In Close Reading: The Reader, edited by Lentricchia, Frank and DuBois, Andrew. Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eaglestone, Robert. 2019. Literature: Why It Matters. Wiley.Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 2002. “On Style.” In On Literature. Translated by Martin McLaughlin. Harcourt, pp. 161–79.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. 1930. “Arnold and Pater.” Bookman 72 (1): 1–7.Google Scholar
Felski, Rita. 2008. Uses of Literature. Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiedler, Leslie A. 1952. “Archetype and Signature: A Study of the Relationship between Biography and Poetry.” The Sewanee Review 60 (2): 253–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27538132.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 2001. “Stanley Agonistes: An Interview with Stanley Fish.” Interview by Jeffrey J. Williams. minnesota review, 115–26. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/438877.Google Scholar
Fleming, John V. 1973. “Historians and the Evidence of Literature.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 4 (1): 95–105. https://doi.org/10.2307/202360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foerster, Norman. 1941. “The Esthetic Judgment and the Ethical Judgment.” In The Intent of the Critic, edited by Stauffer, Donald A.. Princeton University Press, pp. 63–88.Google Scholar
Fowler, Roger. 1966. Essays on Style and Language: Linguistic and Critical Approaches to Literary Style. Routledge & K. Paul.Google Scholar
Freccero, Carla. 2006. Queer/Early/Modern. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Gallop, Jane. 2011. The Deaths of the Author: Reading and Writing in Time. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Garber, Marjorie. 2016. “Over the Influence.” Critical Inquiry 42 (4): 731–59. https://doi.org/10.1086/686960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. 1984. “Criticism in the Jungle.” In Black Literature and Literary Theory. Routledge, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1991. “The Social Scientist as Author: Clifford Geertz on Ethnography and Social Construction,” Interview by Gary Olson. (Inter)views: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Rhetoric and Literacy. Southern Illinois University Press. 187–10.Google Scholar
Geiger, Don. 1958. Oral Interpretation and Literary Study. Pieter Van Vloten.Google Scholar
Gibson, Christine M. 1942. “On Teaching Shakespeare.” The English Journal 31 (7): 548–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glück, Louise. 1993. “Disruption, Hesitation, Silence.” The American Poetry Review 22 (5): 30–32.Google Scholar
Graff, Gerald. 1979. Literature Again Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern Society. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Grafton, Anthony, and Jardine, Lisa. 1986. From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth-and Sixteenth-Century Europe. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, Martha, Hach, Clarence, Meade, Michael D., and Waddell, William S.. 1954. English for Today–10. Longmans.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. 1983. “China: Visiting Rites (I).” Raritan 2 no. 4. 1–23.Google Scholar
Greene, Roland. 2009.“Close Reading Transformed.” A Touch More Rare: Harry Berger, Jr., and the Arts of Interpretation. Fordham University Press, pp. 115–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guillory, John. 2025. On Close Reading. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Haber, Tom B. 1934. “Sharpening a Tool in the ‘Tool-Course.’” The English Journal 23 (6): 472–76.Google Scholar
Hartman, Geoffrey. 1980. “The Work of Reading.” In Criticism in the Wilderness: The Study of Literature Today. Yale University Press, pp. 161–88.Google Scholar
Havighurst, Walter. 1955. “Symbolism and the Student.” College English 16 (7): 429–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/371503.Google Scholar
Hayot, Eric. 2012. On Literary Worlds. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hewett, R. P. 1960. Reading and Response. Harrap.Google Scholar
Hines, Andy. 2015 . “Why Critics Wait.” Public Books. https://www.publicbooks.org/why-critics-wait/.Google Scholar
Hoetker, James. 1969. Dramatics and the Teaching of Literature.. NCTE/ERIC Studies in the Teaching of English.Google Scholar
Holbrook, David. 1967. The Exploring Word: Creative Disciplines in the Education of Teachers of English. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hyman, Stanley Edgar. 1948. The Armed Vision: A Study in the Methods of Modern Literary Criticism. Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Jacobus, Mary. 1981. “Introduction.” Yale French Studies 62: 2–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/2929891.Google Scholar
Jockers, Matthew. 2013. Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History. University of Illinois Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Barbara. 1994. “Double Mourning and the Public Sphere.” In The Wake of Deconstruction. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 16–51.Google Scholar
Kermode, Frank. 1987. “Interview with Frank Kermode.” In Criticism in Society: Interviews with Jacques Derrida, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Frank Kermode, Edward Said, Barbara Johnson, Frank Lentricchia, and J. Hillis Miller, edited by Salusinszky, Imre. Routledge Kegan & Paul, pp. 98–121.Google Scholar
Knickerbocker, William S. 1933. “Bellwether: An Exercise in Dissimulatio.” The Sewanee Review 41 (1): 64–79. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27534843.Google Scholar
Knights, L. C. 1963. “In Search of Fundamental Values.” In The Critical Moment. Literary Criticism in the 1960’s: Essays from the London Times Literary Supplement. McGraw-Hill, pp. 75–81.Google Scholar
Kramnick, Jonathan. 2023. Criticism and Truth. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leavis, F. R. 1937. “Henry James.” Scrutiny 5 (4): 398–417.Google Scholar
Lipking, Lawrence I., and Litz, A. Walton. 1972. Modern Literary Criticism, 1900-1970. Atheneum.Google Scholar
Love, Heather. 2010. “Close but not Deep: Literary Ethics and the Descriptive Turn.” New Literary History 41 (2): 371–91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40983827.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGann, Jerome. 1985. The Beauty of Inflections: Literary Investigations in Historical Method and Theory. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Merton, Robert K. 1940. “Communication.” American Sociological Review 5 (4): 647–48.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Hillis. 1988. “The Function of Rhetorical Study at the Present Time.” In Teaching Literature: What is Needed Now, edited by Engell, James and Perkins, David. Harvard University Press, pp. 87–110.Google Scholar
Mizener, Arthur. 1943. Review of Reading Poems by Wright Thomas and Stuart Gerry Brown. Modern Language Notes 58 (3): 223–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2910288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moretti, Franco. 2000.“Conjectures on World Literature.” New Left Review 2 (1): 54–68. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii1/articles/franco-moretti-conjectures-on-world-literature.Google Scholar
Ohmann, Richard. 1970. “Studying Literature at the End of Ideology.” In The Politics of Literature: Dissenting Essays on the Teaching of English, edited by Kampf, Louis and Lauter, Paul. Pantheon, pp. 130–59.Google Scholar
Perloff, Marjorie. 2004. Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy. University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Pfaff, Martha. 1931. “Spenser as a Sensuous Poet in Book II of the Faerie Queene.” PhD diss., Texas Tech University.Google Scholar
Poovey, Mary. 1999. “Beyond the Current Impasse in Literary Studies.” American Literary History 11 (2): 354–77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/490088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabassa, Gregory. 1989. “No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor.” In The Craft of Translation, edited by Bigueneet, John and Schulte, Rainer. University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, Peter J. 1992. “Against Close Reading.” In Pedagogy is Politics: Literary Theory and Critical Teaching, edited by Kecht, Marina-Regina. University of Illinois Press, pp. 230–44.Google Scholar
Richards, I. A. 1929. Practical Criticism. Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Robert, Osmond T. 1926. “College Entrance Examinations in French.” The Modern Language Journal 11 (1): 17–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/313915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenblatt, Louise M. 1956. “The Acid Test for Literature Teaching.” The English Journal 45 (2): 66–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/809152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenheim, Shawn. 1997. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Rutsala, Vern. 1974. “Poetry in the Classroom.” The American Poetry Review 3 (3): 66–68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40743381.Google Scholar
Rygiel, Dennis. 1968. “Man in Twentieth Century Literature: A Twelfth Grade Program.” In Up the Down Spiral with English: Guidelines, Project Insight. Catholic Board of Education, Diocese of Cleveland.Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. 2003. “Introduction to the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition.” In Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, edited by Auerbach, Erich. Princeton University Press, pp. ix–xxxii.Google Scholar
Shaviro, Steven. 2022. The Rhythm Image: Music Videos in New Audiovisual Forms. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2005. “‘The Slightness of My Endeavor’: An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” interview by Eric Hayot. Comparative Literature 57 (3): 256–72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4122313.Google Scholar
Starnes, Richard. 1965. “Pentagonian Pussyfooting.” Congressional Record 8198.Google Scholar
Stevens, Wallace. 1935. The Letters of Wallace Stevens, edited by Stevens, Holly. Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Stewart, Randall. 1957. “Present Trends in the Study and Teaching of American Literature.” College English 18 (4): 207–11. https://doi.org/10.2307/371841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomashevsky, Boris. 1925. “Thematics.” In Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, edited by Lemon, Lee T. and Reis, Marion J.. University of Nebraska Press, pp. 61–95.Google Scholar
Vendler, Helen. 1996.“The Art of Criticism No. 3.” The Paris Review 141. https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1324/the-art-of-criticism-no-3-helen-vendler.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Ruth C. 1927. “Personal Experience in Rossetti’s ‘House of Life.’” PMLA 42 (2): 492–504. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/personal-experience-in-rossettis-house-of-life/4CEC8562C0825F671BC320041EFC3EBF.Google Scholar
Warren, Austin. 1951. “The Teacher as a Critic.” The Kenyon Review 13 (2): 225–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4333232.Google Scholar
Weisinger, Herbert. 1945. “The Problem of the English Major.” College English 6 (6): 342–46. https://www.jstor.org/stable/370398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiskott, Eric. 2018. Review of Cristina Maria Cervone, D. Vance Smith, Readings in Medieval Textuality: Essays in Honour of A. C. Spearing. The Medieval Review. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/24066/29742.Google Scholar
Wellek, René. 1978. “The New Criticism: Pro and Contra.” Critical Inquiry 4 (4): 611–24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1342947.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. 2007. “Foreword.” In Criticism in the Wilderness: The Study of Literature Today. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1949. “Some Experiments in Literature Teaching.” Rewley House Papers 2 (10): 9–15.Google Scholar
Woolf, Virginia. 1938. The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, edited by Bell, Anne Olivier, Vol. 5, p. 144. Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Zahner, Louis C. 1944. Basic English and Language Study. Education LXIV, pp. 319–25.Google Scholar