I have recently been reminded of the agony that is literary analysis — that is, the science of dissecting an author’s work and determining what rhetorical techniques he used and for what purpose he used them.
I say “agony” because it is agony — you can spend hours staring at a few paragraphs attempting to eke out hidden meanings that are supposedly there.
I have, however, become convinced that is mainly a farce.
American schools seem to emphasize literary analysis in the hopes that it will teach young writers how to use those same rhetorical techniques to their own goals. That is fine with me — some people need a few more metaphors in their life. What I find troubling is the belief that all good writers consciously think about their use of rhetorical devices as they write, thinking “perhaps I should alliterate with hard sounds here to communicate the harshness of the environment” or some other nonsense as they scribble away on their paper.
I can’t help but doubt it. Humans are naturally pattern-seeking animals, meaning that we look for patterns and meaning where there is none. If you listen to an experienced literary analyst, you can’t help but think that the same phenomena is occurring there: we’re looking for deep and hidden meanings in the author’s allusions when he really just thought that mentioning the Argonauts would be kind of neat.
Besides, if it takes an experienced eye and deep thought to determine the meaning behind metaphors and similes, the author is clearly quite bad at communicating his meaning. We shouldn’t have to spend twenty minutes staring at a paragraph to get his point.
