The invention of close reading. By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to turn postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art ...

(This is the last post in a three-part series on this topic. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.) This week’s question is: What is “close reading,” is it important and, if so, how should I ...

W hen I was an undergraduate at Amherst College, it was a rite of passage for all English majors to discover that they had entirely misunderstood Robert Frost’s most famous poem “The Road Not Taken” ( ...

Iwas an English major in college, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t understand why I should pay to study literature when I knew how to read and could do so more happily on my own time. Like many others, ...