Literary Theory and Analysis of Literary Texts
Tools of analysis
Literary theory supplies the vocabulary for close reading: theme and idea, plot and story, composition, conflict, character and characterisation, setting, narrator and point of view, tone and style. Know the genres - epic, lyric, drama - and their subgenres. For poetry, revise meter, rhyme, stanza, rhythm and enjambment; Armenian versification includes syllabic and tonic principles. For figurative language, distinguish simile, metaphor, metonymy, personification, epithet, hyperbole, irony and symbol. Structural terms such as exposition, complication, climax and denouement help in prose analysis.
Traps
Theme is not the same as idea: theme is the topic, idea is the author's judgement. Plot is not story: story is chronological material, plot is its artistic arrangement. Author is not narrator. Metaphor is not metonymy: metaphor works by similarity, metonymy by contiguity. Do not label every comparison a metaphor; if it uses ինչպես or նման, it is a simile.
Worked example
«Ծովը ժպտում էր» is personification: a natural object receives a human action. It can also be read as a metaphor, but the precise term for giving human qualities to a non-human is personification. In an exam answer, name the device, quote the words, then explain the effect.
Rule of thumb
Always answer in three steps: identify the device, cite the text, explain how it shapes meaning.