Page 33 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

32 How to write critical essays
lines, you must read it slowly and thoughtfully at least three
times before you begin to plan an answer. If, by contrast, your
essay must discuss a pair of long novels or plays, you will
probably have to settle for reading each in its entirety just once.
Even here, however, you should be selecting passages to which
you intend to return. Find a few chapters in each novel or a few
scenes in each play which strike you as crucial. Give these at
least a second and ideally a third reading.

READING ALOUD
If you are reading verse, listen as well as look. Read as much as
you can aloud. Alertness to specifics can be aroused by this
method when you are studying many prose works too, and not
just plays or novels that rely on dialogue.
When you are going to recite some passage out loud, think
what pace or tone seems appropriate. Try to hear the voice
prescribed by the printed page, to articulate its meaning loyally
and to do justice to its emotive potential. Observe how often a
passage exploits sound effects. The more it does so, the more
necessary it will be to read it aloud if you are to notice what
you are reading.

READ WITH YOUR DICTIONARY READILY AT HAND
You must possess a dictionary as an essential tool of the trade.
Do not try to skip any word which you do not fully understand.
Pause to explore the context. If that does not decisively reveal
what the word must mean, consult your dictionary. The
dictionary you own will be relatively small. It has to be easy to
handle and not so expensive as to give your bank manager
apoplexy. So in some cases it will be inadequate. Then jot down
words which must be explored in some larger dictionary at the
library.
Where you suspect an English word of having changed its
meaning down the centuries, only the full, many-volumed
version of the Oxford English Dictionary will do. It gives all
the major meanings available to author and reader at all
periods of literary history. Its definitions are supported by