Assignment 6

These quotes are taken from a text found on: http://engbg1.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html called Tackling Textuality - With Theory by Peter Barry.


Original passage

“Often the significant point is where the perceived pattern is broken, for the item in question must have been chosen either in spite of breaking the pattern or because it breaks the pattern, and is thereby foregrounded. In the same way, if you look at a hundred rows of flowers in a wall-papered room, the only ones which will catch your attention are the ones which are not properly aligned (sic)all DIY people know this.”

Paraphrase

Barry discusses that the most interesting parts of a text are often where patterns are being disregarded. This inconsistency in language must have been made for a reason, to point something out. Either the phrase or word is chosen because of that reason – it sticks out from the rest; or it is considered to be interesting enough not to alter just to make it fit into a pattern of a text. It catches our eye not unlike like the woman in a red dress, walking the streets surrounded by people in grey suits.

Original passage

“These, then, are some of the main ways in which readers and critics engage with literary texts and begin to put forward accounts of what they mean. So, where does it leave us? The situation is this. We will always need these ten elements of interpretation. Literary criticism can never grow out of them, and they can never be superseded. It's impossible to do English without them. It always was, and it always will be.”

Paraphrase

Barry questions his meaning of highlighting these particular rules to working with literature. Do we really need them at all? The answer is according to him: Yes, we do! These ten guidelines to text interpretation will always be useful when examining literature. Even as time progresses, these are the basic fundamentals in literary criticism and without them we will fail. They are essential to English and they will never grow out of date.


Important words/phrases that should not be changed

Literary jargon like: Derridean dictum, contradictions, linguistic quirks, aporia, shifts or breaks, tense, person, attitude, absences or omissions.

The quote below I think should be left as it is. It is stated as an opinion of his about a poem and therefore very hard to paraphrase correctly. We cannot read his mind and know what he was thinking when he said these words:

“Or rather, it's about neither. It's about an object which is pure textuality, which only exists in language; it a sea/pine-forest, or a pine-forest/sea. Here is a poem, then, which actively resists reading.”


Review

I think this text is very well written of course, though a bit boring. The author seems to be a bit full of himself and think he is somewhat of genius, even though he his mostly bringing up the basics in literary criticism. The language could have been more down to earth to improve students understanding of it. It is good that he incorporated concrete examples, like with the poems, to make his points clearer to the audience. It is also a way for the readers to put his ideas to the test right away on a well known piece of literary work.