Literature and Textual Analysis
Literature and Textual Analysis rewards close reading of set poems, prose and drama, and the ability to build an argument about them. Examiners look for analysis of how meaning is made - form, structure, voice, imagery, stagecraft - rather than a retelling of what happens, and for a line of argument that answers the exact question asked rather than everything you know about the text.
Levels to analyse
- Form and genre: sonnet turn, stanza break, soliloquy, aside, free indirect discourse.
- Structure: where the turn or reveal falls, the order of information, what is withheld and when.
- Voice: who speaks, to whom, with what authority, and whether the narration is reliable.
- Imagery and diction: semantic fields, connotations, recurring metaphor patterns.
- Sound and rhythm: metre, stress, caesura, rhyme - always tied to a specific effect.
- Drama: staging, props, exits, silence and dramatic irony, not just dialogue.
Worked example
Two invented lines: "The lamp guttered and she said nothing. / Outside, the wind rehearsed its old complaint." Question: how does the poet create tension? A strong answer notes that the coordinate clause denies the reaction the reader expects - "and she said nothing" withholds the response the scene has set up; that the personification "rehearsed its old complaint" grants the wind the speech she refuses, so the silence is filled from outside; and that the full stop between the lines separates interior from exterior. Each observation names a technique, quotes minimally, and states an effect on the reader.
Traps that cost marks
- Plot summary in place of analysis; it earns nothing above the lowest band.
- Feature-spotting: naming alliteration or enjambment without stating what it does in this line.
- Quote-dumping: a long quotation with no comment on specific words.
- Treating a passage question as if the rest of the text did not exist.
- Biography or historical anecdote replacing analysis of the words on the page.