There are different essays that one gets to write when they are in school. The literary essay is an argumentative essay that analyzes elements like perspective, language, the structure of the text, as My Custom Essay claims in their blog.
Also, it explains the literary devices that the author has used to convey ideas and create effects. The meaning comes from the words literary analysis, which means studying the text, interpreting their purpose, and exploring why the author made some of these choices. This analysis is usually based on short stories, novels, plays, poems, etc.
When writing a literary analysis essay, there are a few things you need to do before you begin writing it. Ensure that you have carefully read the text. After this, you can come up with a thesis statement that will make your essay more focused. As with other papers, ensure that you maintain the structure that is standard to academic essays. The article should have an introduction, the main body (this is divided into paragraphs), and a conclusion.
Step-by-step guidance on how to write a literary essay:
Read the text and identify the literary devices.
The first step is reading the text carefully as you are taking notes. As you continue to read, make sure you are paying attention to the intriguing things, the ones that are surprising or even the confusing ones. These things will help in your analysis.
When writing your analysis, it is not simply just explaining the events that are described in the text but also analyzing the writing itself and discussing on a deeper level how the text works. The primary goal is that you are looking at the literary devices. These are the textual events that the author or writer uses to convey his meaning or create effects. When comparing and contrasting texts, you can also check if there are any connections between the texts.
Language choices
Consideration should be made on the style that the author uses. What type of sentences have they used? Short, simple, poetic, complex??
Do the word choices stand out? Are they unusual or exciting? The terms used are they figurative, or they have their literal meaning?
Another thing to check out in the language is the use of imagery in the text. Some images, if they recur, crest an atmosphere that symbolizes the importance.
Narrative voice
Another thing to look out for when writing a literary analysis essay is a narrative voice. Some questions you need to ask yourself are: who is telling the story? How are they telling the story?
How the story is written gives us have you on the character. In a ration, it is from my first-person than the person is involved in the story personally; well, if it’s from a third-person, the narrator tells us that the characters are from a distance.
You should also consider the perspective of the narrator. Is the narrator omniscient, or they only have some passive knowledge? Are they reliable narrators or unreliable so that we do not take them at face value.
Conclusion
The other steps to consider when writing the essay include:
- Coming up with a thesis
- Writing the title and introduction
- Writing the body of the literary essay
- Writing a conclusion