跟读练习: how to do critical literary analysis | English made simple - 通过视频学习英语口语
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We study poems, plays, and books in English class, but strangely if you really think about it, we never actually learn how to analyze literature.
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Rather, we were expected to pick it up along the way.
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This, however, is unfortunately easier said than done, and as a result, we're just left with the too vague
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or go deeper comments on our essays without actually knowing how to improve.
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Today we're going to change that.
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Here is my five -step critical literary analysis guide
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that I developed over the course of my high school career
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that got me an A -star in IGCSE English and A7 in IB English HL.
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It honestly made my life so much easier
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because it meant I could spend the minimum amount of time worrying about English exams
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and spend more time on things like my university applications.
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If you want to improve your English grades, watch this.
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There is just one thing you need for this critical literary analysis framework, your text.
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The steps will be simple, but you have to follow them exactly.
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They're also all linked together with the fifth step being the most important
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because that's what's actually going to make your analysis precise and deep.
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In order to demonstrate these steps in real time, I'll be using one of my favorite poems, A .E.
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Hausmann's Because I Loved You Better, as an example.
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But this method works on both a large scale, so on a whole poem or a book, and small scale, so on individual sentences and quotes.
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If you want to know how you can use this method to analyze a full book,
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make sure to check it out on my free Patreon linked down below.
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Step one, summarize what is actually happening.
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The first step is to summarize exactly what is happening.
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Don't worry about literary meaning or devices or anything like that at this stage.
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Focus on just the plot, as if you're trying to give a factual report.
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And this doesn't have to be very long either, you just have to make sure that you understand fully the sequence of events.
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If you want to, you can write this out to practice the first few times, but afterwards you can just do it in your head.
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For example, the poem that we're going to discuss, Because I'd Like To Better, tells the story of a man,
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our speaker, who has just confessed to his lover that he likes them, probably more than a man should, in his words.
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Basically, he's confessed that his feelings are stronger than he would like to admit to himself.
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Unfortunately, the other person does not reciprocate his feelings and has asked our speaker to forget him entirely, which our speaker promises to do.
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In the third stanza, the scene cuts to a tomb.
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It is of our speaker.
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He has died trying to keep his promise, and he asks his lover to stop by his headstone
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and know that he has died trying to keep his word to him.
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Step two, generalize it to a wider human experience.
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Right now, what is happening in this work is limited to our speaker.
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So why are we affected by it?
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Why do we care about the fiction at all when they are all stories about other people?
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But because they talk about the general human condition, experiences the majority of us will go through at least once in our life.
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That's why we relate to fiction, to songs, to movies, and so on.
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So once you've established the plotline of the work, it's time to extrapolate from it the general human condition that it is describing.
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In the case of our poem, for example, it talks about three main universal experiences.
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First, loving somebody, having a crush, but then having your feelings rejected by the other person.
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A devastating experience for everybody.
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Sometimes it hurts so much that it feels like you're dying.
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Second, still loving your crush, for lack of a better term, even after the rejection.
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In this poem, for instance, the speaker still feels very much in love with this you figure, even after his metaphorical death.
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And third, and this is a slightly more nuanced experience, but feeling like you ought not to love someone, not being able to help it,
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but also not being able to quite admit it even to yourself.
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That is why perhaps the speaker says that he likes his lover, even though his actions clearly point to a deep love for this other person.
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And if you know the authorial and historical context of this poem,
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you'll understand why the poet and the speaker is not in a position where he can freely admit to his feelings,
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and he probably also has a layer of internalized homophobia
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that is stopping himself from being able to accept it even to himself.
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If you're interested for more on this check out my free Patreon where I explain more on this poem as well.
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Step three, name the emotions.
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Next we have to describe what we're actually feeling from this work.
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I know this slightly sounds like some strange group therapy session
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but one key part of literary analysis is being able to explicitly describe exactly what this is making us feel.
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That is also why reading makes us more emotionally mature people
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because we're able to exactly understand and name what we were feeling.
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So first, put an emotion to the work.
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For instance, in Because I Like You Better, the big feeling here is sadness.
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Step four, be a bit more specific.
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As you can probably tell though, sadness alone is not nearly satisfactory enough to describe all of the nuanced feelings going on in this poem.
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And there is definitely more than one feeling going on here too.
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So the next step is to be more specific with the emotions and how we describe these emotions.
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Let's apply this back to our case study, our poem.
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We know that the speaker feels sad, but he's also feeling many smaller emotions under this sadness umbrella.
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So essentially we're trying to splice this larger emotion into all of its smaller and more intricate parts.
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First we have his resigned acceptance that his lover does not love him back.
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Next we have the speaker's yearning and a deep love for his lover, hoping that his lover will still remember him even after his metaphorical death.
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There's also a degree of self -blame.
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This is why as we mentioned before he uses like instead of love
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and why he says all this was because he liked his lover.
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Blaming his own emotions and affection for this other person for all of the sadness and not the other person.
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We can also see that the speaker is feeling ignored because his emotions, which for him was life -endingly deep,
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was nothing but annoying or irksome to his lover.
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That is why he uses the word irksome.
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There's also the sense of not belonging because his feelings, which are natural and uncontrollable as we all know, are not accepted by society.
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Hence why he says that his feelings are more than suits a man to say.
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Presumably because society has historically told men that they have to be stoic and restrained in their emotions.
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Step 5.
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Why this?
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And this is the key difference between a B and an A star answer.
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Finally, we have the most important step.
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This is the one step that everyone misses in their literary analysis, and why your analysis might sound vague or not deep enough.
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The last step is to explain exactly why the author chose these words to express themselves,
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and all of these smaller emotions that we were able to identify in our previous step.
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For example, for this poem, let's say that you want to analyze the quote, throw the thought away.
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A B -level answer, or a 5 -6 level answer if you're doing the IB, might say the poet uses the metaphor to say
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that the speaker will throw the thought away to show how much he wanted to get rid of his thoughts.
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However, that analysis is still just explaining the plot of what is happening in those words, that the speaker wants to throw away the thought.
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It does not explain why Hausman chose the verbs throw or the word thought.
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We have to fully explain this if we were to make it a top -level answer.
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For example, we might analyze the word throw like this.
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The speaker promises to throw his thought away as though it were nothing more than an irksome piece of trash
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and not as devastatingly deep feelings for his lover.
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So linking the word throwaway, which is commonly used for trash,
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and how much the speaker of the poem is feeling like his emotions are literally being treated like trash.
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Likewise, we might analyze Hausmann's specific choice of the word thought like this.
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Furthermore, Hausmann describes the speaker's uncontrollable feelings and emotions as a thought, as though it was a conscious thing the speaker could control,
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and therefore just stop thinking about.
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Pay close attention to the difference between the first answer,
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which only explains the effects of the word and the plot of what is happening in that line, and the other two answers,
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which specifically comments on why these words were intentionally chosen by Hausmann and the effect that those words have on the reader.
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So this is the simple five -step guide to critical literary analysis.
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As you can see, the steps themselves are extremely simple, but it can be tricky to execute them accurately.
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But actually being able to follow them explicitly is the difference between a vague and a deep understanding of the literary text.
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And that is why I've posted another full example analysis, this time for a whole book, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for free on my Patreon,
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where as you know I post all of my study resources for free.
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Thank you so much for watching and bye!
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本课的词汇与口语要点
这节口语课以视频“how to do critical literary analysis”为素材。 视频中反复出现的词有：step, feeling, speaker, emotion, poem。 这段视频共有 113 个句子、1684 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 7:39。 说话人语速较快，每分钟约 220 个词，会出现较多连读和弱读。 87% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，词汇容易理解。
视频中的重点词汇
视频中 15 个值得学习的单词，附发音和释义：
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| poem 名词 | /ˈpoʊ.əm/ | 詩 /诗, 詩篇 /诗篇 |
| emotion 名词 | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | 感情, 情感 |
| lover 名词 | /ˈlʌvɚ/ | 戀人 /恋人, 情人 |
| literary 形容词 | /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/ | 文學 /文学, 文 |
| analyze 动词 | /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/ | 分析 |
| sadness 名词 | /ˈsædnəs/ | 悲傷 /悲伤, 悲哀 |
| trash 名词 | /tɹæʃ/ | 垃圾, 廢物 /废物 |
| vague 形容词 | /veɪɡ/ | 模糊, 糢糊 |
| fiction 名词 | /ˈfɪkʃən/ | 虛構文學 /虚构文学, 小說 /小说 |
| poet 名词 | /ˈpoʊ.ət/ | 詩人 /诗人 |
| crush 动词 | /kɹʌʃ/ | 挤压, 挤 |
| explicitly 副词 | 明確地 /明确地 | |
| confess 动词 | /kənˈfɛs/ | 承認 /承认, 懺悔 /忏悔 |
| universal 形容词 | /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ | 宇宙的 |
| ignore 动词 | /ɪɡˈnɔː/ | 無視 /无视, 忽略 |
视频中出现的短语动词
| 单词 | 释义 |
|---|---|
| check out 动词 | 退房 |
| throw away 动词 | 棄置 /弃置, 扔 |
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事 | has just confessed · has asked · you've established |
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | were expected · are not accepted · being treated |
| 定语从句 who / which + 从句 — 补充说明人或事物 | feelings, which are · throwaway, which is |
需要注意的发音
说话人用了 18 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 we're, you're, doesn't。请按听到的简短形式来说。
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, trash /tɹæʃ/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/
- 长单词——注意重音位置: literary /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/, presumably /pɹɪˈzuːməbli/
中文母语者容易读错的音：
- /v/ — 不要读成 /w/，上齿轻触下唇: lover /ˈlʌvɚ/, vague /veɪɡ/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, verb /vɝb/, devastate /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/
- 词尾辅音 — 要读清楚，后面不要加元音: analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/, sadness /ˈsædnəs/, trash /tɹæʃ/, vague /veɪɡ/, poet /ˈpoʊ.ət/
- /r/ 和 /l/ 的区别: literary /ˈlɪt.(ə.)ɹə.ɹi/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, relate /ɹɪˈleɪt/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/, freely /ˈfɹili/
如何用这段视频练习
- 先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟读，熟练之后再回到正常速度。
- 录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 poem, emotion, lover 这类单词。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。