Assignment 6

Paraphrasing:
The check-list of text analyses is fundamental to be able to define texts. Without them we would not be able to do English, and still they are not enough. We also need literary theory as a complement since the check-list of texts does not focus on literary context and co-texts.

Barry studies the second line in Shakespeare’s sonnet and relates that to literature and language. He finds something strange about it and sees that the words come in atypical order.

When it comes to literature and gender we tend to ask if the writer is a man or a woman, (this in fact Barry find as a good question to ask) but in Shakespeare’s sonnet the gender is quite harsh.

Quotation
“…four major aspects of the relationship between literature and the world beyond, these being firstly, literature and history, secondly, literature and language, thirdly, literature and gender, and finally, literature and the psychoanalysis”

Review:
Tackling Textuality-with theory, by Peter Barry is about how to define and understand texts of different kinds. There are some guide-lines of what to look for and how to work with texts and he also gives some examples from Shakespeare’s sonnet and Adrienne Rich’s poem. Some parts of the text are rather difficult to both understand and follow as for example the sonnet where the text is written in English from the 17th century where words sometimes even had a different meaning than they have today. But also to be able to see the metaphors that are used and what we also are to look for in the text. At first sight the text was both quite boring and difficult but after reading the text for the twentieth time I could finally see things that Barry was pointing out, that is, to see examples of history, language, gender and psychoanalysis on the texts, even if I still found it insipid.