Literary appreciation is the skill of analysing how a writer uses language, structure, and technique to create meaning and effect. It goes beyond simply understanding what the text says; it’s about understanding how it works.

1. Appreciation of Poetry

Poetry uses condensed language to convey emotion and ideas. When analysing a poem, focus on its sounds, imagery, and structure.

• Literary and Poetic Devices
  • Metaphor: A direct comparison, stating one thing is another.
    • Example: “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players” from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The world is not literally a stage, but this comparison explains the roles we play in life.
  • Simile: A comparison using “like” or “as”.
    • Example: “O my Luve is like a red, red rose” from Robert Burns’ poem. The beloved is compared to a rose to suggest beauty and perfection.
  • Personification: Giving human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.
    • Example: “I wandered lonely as a cloud” from William Wordsworth’s poem, where he later describes the daffodils “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”. Flowers cannot literally dance, but the image conveys their joyful movement.
  • Irony: A contrast between what is said and what is meant, or between expectation and reality.
    • Example: In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the line “Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink” is a classic example of situational irony. The sailors are surrounded by water they cannot drink.
• Sound Devices
  • Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds.
    • Example: “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, / The furrow followed free” from Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
  • Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds within words.
    • Example: “The tide rises, the tide falls” from H.W. Longfellow’s poem, repeating the long ‘i’ sound.
  • Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words.
    • Example: “And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil” from G.M. Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur”, repeating the ‘s’ and ‘d’ sounds.
• Form and Structure
  • Form: Look for specific types of poems.
    • Example (Sonnet): Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, which begins “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, is a perfect 14-line English sonnet.
    • Example (Ode): John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous ode, a formal poem addressing and celebrating an object.
  • Rhyme Scheme: The pattern of rhymes at the end of each line.
    • Example: The first four lines of Sonnet 18 are “day” (A), “temperate” (B), “May” (A), “date” (B). This establishes an ABAB rhyme scheme.
  • Metre: The rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
    • Example (Iambic Pentameter): The line “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” is in perfect iambic pentameter, with five pairs of unstressed followed by stressed syllables (da-DUM x 5).

2. Appreciation of Prose

Prose analysis focuses on narrative techniques, style, and characterisation.

• Narrative Perspective (Point of View)
  • First-person (“I”):
    • Example: The opening of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick: “I think I will call myself Ishmael.” The entire story is told from Ishmael’s perspective.
  • Third-person Limited (“he/she,” one character’s thoughts):
    • Example: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice largely follows Elizabeth Bennet. We see the world through her eyes and know her thoughts, but not necessarily those of Mr Darcy.
  • Third-person Omniscient (“he/she,” all characters’ thoughts):
    • Example: George Eliot’s Middlemarch. The narrator can move freely between characters, revealing the inner thoughts of Dorothea, Lydgate, and others, offering broad social commentary.
• Characterisation
  • Direct Characterisation (Telling):
    • Example: In the General Prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the narrator says of the Knight, “He was a verray, parfit, gentil knyght” (“He was a true, perfect, gentle knight”). This is a direct statement of the character’s qualities.
  • Indirect Characterisation (Showing):
    • Example: In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge’s greed is not just stated; it is shown through his actions—refusing to give coal to his clerk, dismissing charity collectors, and saying the poor should “die and decrease the surplus population”.
• Setting and Atmosphere
  • Example: The first chapter of Dickens’ Bleak House opens with a detailed, oppressive description of London fog: “Fog everywhere. Fog up the river… Fog down the river…”. This setting immediately establishes a gloomy, confusing, and suffocating atmosphere that reflects the novel’s themes of legal stagnation.

3. Appreciation of Drama

A dramatic passage must be analysed as both a written text and a blueprint for performance.

• Dramatic Conventions
  • Soliloquy (alone on stage, speaking thoughts):
    • Example: Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be: that is the question” speech in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He is alone, contemplating suicide, and the audience gets direct access to his innermost philosophical struggles.
  • Monologue (long speech to others):
    • Example: Mark Antony’s funeral oration, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” in Julius Caesar. He is addressing the crowd to turn them against the conspirators.
  • Aside (remark to the audience):
    • Example: Throughout Othello, the villain Iago frequently makes short comments to the audience revealing his true intentions, while the other characters on stage remain oblivious.
• Dialogue
  • Example: The sharp, witty exchanges (repartee) between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing are a “merry war”. Their dialogue reveals their intelligence, pride, and underlying attraction long before they admit it.
• Stage Directions
  • Example: One of the most famous in history is from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: “[Exit, pursued by a bear.]”. It is simple, yet it creates immediate, dramatic, and slightly absurd action on stage.
• Dramatic Irony (audience knows more than the characters)
  • Example: In Othello, the audience knows Iago is a manipulative villain, but Othello repeatedly calls him “honest Iago.” This creates immense tension, as we watch Othello trust the man who is destroying him.