Literary Analysis and Interpretation of the Prescribed Text
What you must know
This section tests your ability to make an argued case about how the Greek creates meaning. You need a working vocabulary of literary terms and, crucially, the Greek words that support each claim: characterisation, dramatic irony, rhetorical questions, apostrophe, ring composition, simile and metaphor, word order and hyperbaton, sound effects (assonance, alliteration, hiatus), metre and rhythm, and narrative voice. Know the genre conventions of your text: epic formulae and epithets, tragic stichomythia and messenger speeches, historiographic speeches and authorial comment, oratory's appeals to character and emotion.
Building an answer
Use a clear structure: a thesis sentence, then points each anchored in a short quotation (two to five words is enough), a named technique, and an explanation of the effect on the audience. Link points back to the question, not to a pre-learned essay.
Traps
- Feature-spotting without effect: naming a technique is not analysis.
- Long quotations with no comment; examiners want close reading, not paraphrase.
- Ignoring the question's focus (e.g. 'how does the speaker persuade?' rather than 'what happens?')
- Claiming authorial intention as fact; phrase as 'the audience is invited to...'.
- Misidentifying speaker in dialogue, especially in stichomythia.
Worked example
If asked how a speaker creates urgency, note a run of short clauses, asyndeton, and a imperative or rhetorical question; quote one key word; explain that the compressed rhythm mirrors the speaker's pressure on the addressee. Always tie technique to effect in one sentence.