Writing a Formalist literary analysis in 11 steps

Step 1: Prepare for analysis

1. Divide the text into workable sections. In poetry, this might be stanzas, but more likely you’ll divide by plot (the different scenes within the narrative), images, audiences, or other types of figurative language.
2. Review each section. What do you notice when you think about the different sections? Does each section support the same idea? Do sections contrast with each other?
3. Mark significant passages within each section.
4. Write out your thoughts about these sections. As you write, explore the relationship between what the text says and what ideas come to your mind.

Note: As the theme unfolds, these divisions become important. Some sections may relate to your theme, others won’t. Dividing the text into sections saves you time, because you can read and review only those sections that relate most significantly to your theme.

Step 2: Paraphrase

1. To examine and hone your literary comprehension, paraphrase the text line by line or section by section.

   Note: In a Formalist critique, paraphrasing a text is heretical because changing the author’s or poet’s words creates a different meaning, even if subtle. However, paraphrasing during initial review tests your comprehension, because it’s impossible to analyze well when you don’t understand what’s happening in the storyline.

Step 3: Identify diction

1. Examine your author’s word choices. Use a good dictionary to look up the definition of key words.
   Note: Even if you know the basic definition of the word, see if there are other definitions that influence the text.
2. Ask the following types of questions about language:
   • Why has the author used this word instead of a synonym? What additional connotations are attached to this specific word?
   • How does the sound of the word influence the text? Is the sound hard or soft?
   • What word is repeated? Does each repetition alter the denotation or connotation? Or emphasize one specific meaning?
   • Is the word slang, standard, or formal language? How does using this level of language develop characterization, tone, setting, or something else?
   • How does the meaning of a specific word transform as the text progresses?

Step 4: Identify figurative language

1. Watch and take note of non-literal use of language, particularly:
   • metaphors
   • similes
   • symbols.
2. Watch and take note of other poetic uses of language:
   • Personification
   • Allegories
   • Hyperbole
   • Understatement
   • Synecdoche
   • Metonymy
   • Apostrophe
   • Pun
3. How do these figures underscore the text’s ideas.

Step 5: Identify literary devices

1. Identify other significant literary devices in the text, like characterization and setting.
2. How do these devices emphasize specific ideas?
3. To find a literary device, look for repetition of words and ideas in the text. If words are repeated multiple times, chances are it’s a symbol for a larger idea.
4. Sometimes repeated ideas or images aren’t just symbolic of one idea. This type of repetition is called a motif.
5. How might symbols and motifs develop a specific idea or topic?

Step 6: Identify metric patterns and rhyme schemes

1. If a poem, determine whether it is essentially in open or closed form.
   • If closed, scan for metrical patterns and rhyme schemes.
   • If open or free verse, watch for more subtle sound and rhythm patterns.
2. How does this overall form become part of the poem’s meaning?
3. Which words, phrases, or ideas receive added emphasis in the rhythms and forms you discover?

Step 7: Identify tensions, paradoxes, ironies

1. Because Formalist, or New Critics, are interested in tensions, make a list of oppositions, ironies, and paradoxes that you perceive in the text?
2. How are these tensions resolved?
3. How are paradoxes clarified?
4. Why are given situations ironic?

Step 8: Create theme statement

A theme statement is not a thesis statement. A theme identifies what a text is saying and makes a claim about a topic, a thesis combines what with how.
Note: For examples of theme and thesis statements, let’s use Robert Burns’ To a Louse, as the text.

1. Stop and take an inventory of what you’ve discovered, so far.
2. Decide what topics are introduced based on the first 7 Steps?
3. Identify topics in 1-3 words. For example, pride, vanity, poverty, religious devotion, cleanliness.
4. Develop a theme statement about 1 or more of these topics.
   Note: A topic can be described in a word or phrase, a theme is the message about that topic.
5. A theme is typically an entire sentence. To kick start, begin your theme sentence with The theme of the text is… (You can improve the sentence after you get a draft down).
6. Choosing the topic of pride, you might consider:
   • Jenny’s characterization: she is proud and vain but has a louse in her hair.
   • Louse’s characterization: the louse is also proud and corrupts a beautiful hat.
   • Characterization of the poor
   • Think of religious motifs in the poem: saints and sinners, the setting of the church.
   • Consider the change in tone of the last stanza.
7. Put it all together, consider what the poem is saying about pride in religion:
   • • Only the poor in spirit (humble) can have true devotion to God.
     • Pride and perceived superiority are greater harms than poverty.

   Note: Both of these themes are complete sentences. They make a claim about the topic, rather than state what the topic is.

Step 9: Create thesis statement

1. With your theme statement in mind, consider this question:
   What is the relationship between what the text is saying (its theme) and how the theme is expressed (diction, sounds, imagery, figurative language, shape, and rhythms)?
2. Capture in a sentence or two what you discovered about your text’s how and what. Focus on:
   How A (the pieces) develops B (the whole)?
3. Develop your thesis:
   
   1. Start with the theme: Pride and perceived superiority are greater harms than poverty.
   2. Review your reading notes and annotations, then list the different literary devices that support this theme.
      • Jenny’s characterization
      • Louse’s characterization
      • church setting
      • clothing motif
      • irony that a rich woman has a louse in her bonnet
      • juxtaposition of rich and poor, prideful and humble
      • diction: a lot of slang, typical of lower economic classes than upper
      • characterization of the speaker
   3. Decide which literary devices best prove this specific theme. Consider if some literary devices actually develop other devices. For example,
      • Does the diction of the poem develop the speaker’s characterization?
      • Does the clothing motif both characterize Jenny and develop the rich and poor juxtaposition?
   4. If you choose Jenny’s characterization, the louse’s characterization, the speaker’s characterization, and they juxtaposition of rich and poor as your primary literary devices, your thesis might plan to show how other literary devices develop these different characters.

• Thesis: The characterization of Jenny and the louse, partnered with the contrast between the rich and poor, develop the theme that pride and perceived superiority are greater harms than poverty.

Step 10: Draft initial outline

Based on your thesis development, your outline might look like this:

Thesis: The characterization of Jenny and the louse, partnered with the contrast between the rich and poor, develop the theme that pride and perceived superiority are greater harms than poverty.

1. Introduction (1 paragraph)
2. Jenny’s characterization
   • Her appearance: bonnet (designer, etc) (1 paragraph)
   • Her behavior: flinging curls around (1 paragraph)
3. Louse’s characterization
   • Descriptions of how distasteful a louse is (1-2 paragraphs)
   • Descriptions of his pride (1 paragraph)
4. Contrast between rich and poor
   • Clothing motif (1 paragraph)
   • What does a louse symbolize–poverty (1 paragraph)
   • Speaker’s characterization–use slang (poorer class) but sees the louse in Jenny’s hair (1 paragraph)
5. Conclusion (1 paragraph)

Step 11: Write your paper

1. Once your have a thesis, start writing your paper based on the sections (each literary device) outlined in your thesis. Remember that sections do not equal paragraphs. Based on the thesis above, you’ll have 3 major sections, but multiple paragraphs for each section.
2. Skip your introduction.
3. Write the topic sentence for your first section.
   
   1. This topic sentence also follows the pattern: How does A accomplish B, or in this case, How does Jenny’s appearance develop her character as prideful?
   2. The answer to this question becomes your topic sentence:
      Although Jenny might be considered a saint for being in church, her prideful appearance establishes Jenny as one of the sinners.
   3. Look closely at this topic sentence. First, it reminds the reader what the overall theme is (pride is sin). Next, it shows the specific focus of this section: Jenny’s appearance shows her pride.
   4. Continue this pattern until you have sentences for each section in your outline.
      
      • Topic sentence, section 1:
      • Topic sentence, section 2:
      • Topic sentence, section 3:
4. Write body paragraphs under each topic that support your findings. At least 1 paragraph for each subtopic in your outline. Draw from facts and observations found in your previous analysis.
5. Write your introduction. Include enough interesting background to set the stage for your thesis. The introduction is where you set the stage and reveal your angle on the theme, a sort of “Once upon a time,” followed by basic facts and ideas the reader needs to follow and believe your thesis.
6. Write your conclusion. Revisit each of your topics and elements from your introduction and comment how they not only support your thesis statement, but reveal something new, or at least warrant a fresh look at the text.
7. Edit and rewrite. Review your paper from top to bottom for cohesion. Look for and fix:
   • Logical gaps and missed details.
   • Details that distract from your main ideas and pull the reader away from your intended path.
   • Awkward phrasing that could be simplified and clarified.
   • Cumbersome phrasing that could be broken into smaller, more digestible bites.
   • Spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
8. Celebrate! or get some sleep, since you’re probably writing your paper in the wee hours before its due.