I was recently browsing some of the documents on my back-up drive and found this treatise from the early days of Veritas Tutors, when I intrepidly pitched an innovative (in my humble opinion) writing course.  In fact, I’ll even share the syllabus and marketing collateral with you – note the small class size and price per student $325 was a complete steal.  Anyway, without further ado, here are my over-intellectualized musings on the elusive practice commonly referred to as “Close Reading.”

What is Close Reading?

The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one’s going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

The poem’s title, “The Silken Tent,” catches the eye and evokes a delicate mental image.  Immediately, we begin to read—to recite, because poetry must be oral.  (Even if read silently, the poem must be narrated internally.)  The text can only be completed with the performance of the orator.  By reading and blending your voice with these words, you give your life to the poem; in exchange for that magnanimous gift, the poem reveals its beauty to you.

The moment we begin to read, however, we find that the poem is actually about a woman.  Better yet, it is simultaneously about a woman and a silken tent as the two symbols are bound by metaphor.  After the feminine introduction, every subsequent word in the poem refers to the tent, but the tension remains, causing us to read the description of the tent as the woman: “She is as in a field a silken tent.”

As we read, we are presented with language of tying and bondage: ropes, guys, support, bound, ties, taut, etc.  We must assume that this choice of language is not arbitrary.  In fact, everything should be assumed to be deliberate.  Even if the writer is unaware of the significance and structure of his words, we as readers are authorized to piece that meaning together.

Then, in the middle lines of the poem, we encounter that supporting “central cedar pole.”  Our attention is drawn to this central climax.  Here the poem shifts, becoming about the pole rather than the tent as a whole.  Again, we notice the language, “Heavenward,” and understand there is an immortal spiritual connotation.  The use of the word “soul” in the following line supports our presumption.

Perhaps the pole represents an aspiration to ideals and goodness while still tied to worldly things.  Perhaps “she” too is otherworldly, and the ropes must preserve her on this world… keep her from vanishing into thin air.  Perhaps the pole is a male lover, his member, providing the poem a sexual connotation.  All we can ever do is conjecture, because we cannot know the poet’s intentions.

Eventually, as we continue reading, our awareness shifts from the content of the poem to its form.  We realize that this is a Shakespearean Sonnet (fourteen lines with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).  As life itself is bound by the confines of time and space or birth and death, this poem is confined and defined by its form.

We begin to realize that the central pole stands also for the central metaphor of the poem.  The pole gives form, shape, and utility.  But, we only notice this form when we tug on the cords.  It is resistance that causes shape to emerge.  Spirituality is superimposed upon sexual drama, and this self-referencing structure eternally sustains itself.

The Structure of Language

When you encounter an unknown English word and look it up in the dictionary, you find that original word defined by other words.  If you were to look up each of those words, they too would be defined by other words, and so on, ad infinitum.  You may never have considered that language is an arbitrary arrangement of words and symbols, but that is certainly the case.  Recognizing this capricious nature of language might give you an uneasy feeling; however, the structure of the English language is in no danger of collapse.  In fact, hundreds of thousands of flimsy symbols have combined to make a very sturdy network.

This sturdiness, however, does not come from the system itself; it comes from our collective agreement on that system.  We are the ones who unknowingly determine our language.  While certain words and grammar mistakes begin as slang, they often become part of our vocabulary when enough people agree.  Words that were gibberish twenty years ago—“Google”, “IM”, or “blog”—are now essential aspects of daily language.

That description of language can also help us understand Literature, which is inexorably bound to our collective understanding of words and symbols.  When reading a book or poem like “The Silken Tent,” we form connections between the words, images, and ideas in the text.  “Tent” links to the idea of a woman, which extends to love, heaven, and that “central cedar pole,” which implies sexuality, manhood, mating, and birth… the combination of two beings to bring newness into a world of disorder.  By discovering the interconnected web of words and symbols that exists beneath the stanzas and in the open spaces between the lines, we have achieved the elusive practice, known as Close Reading.

We have detached ourselves and the work of art from its author.  Just as we do not need to know a word’s etymology to understand the word, we do not need any information about a poem’s context to understand the poem.  Knowing that Robert Frost published this poem in 1942 does not change our analysis that this poem is about itself.  Furthermore, we realize that the structure of “The Silken Tent” is a metaphor for all poetry.
The poem, placed in the world, gives us a sense of form.  A vibrant object—a tent or an urn—highlighted in the midst of a homogenous field demands attention.  Just as the poem emerges in the world, it also takes its place within a tradition (a history) of poetry.  So, taking a step back from the details of the words, we can still close (but not quite as close) read this poem as a single entry within the constantly growing lexicon of Literature.

By placing two or more poems in conversation with one another, we can discuss the function of form.  For instance, John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is also about art turning inward.  It is another, perhaps the first, poem about poetry.

Ode on a Grecian Urn
John Keats
(Published in 1820)
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unweari-ed,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

This poem has an iconic aura that extends backward to the origin of epic poetry in Ancient Greece and resonates forward to the poetry of today.  The urn, weathered and aged, still stands solitary and beautiful in the wide world.  It will always give us joy, because it is always beautiful.  That is the nature of poetry—a quietly enduring utterance, an ode that permanently echoes whether you are listening or not.

Just as all words are tied to each other to varying degrees, all literary works belong to the same tradition.  So, the more you read, the easier it will be to recognize these connections.

By understanding the nature of an urn, we gain a greater sense of a silken tent.  As we continue to read, we can understand other literary objects.  Using the above ideas, try to close-read the sparse but suggestive lines of William Carlos Williams.

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
(Published in 1923)

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

Now,  convince someone (perhaps just yourself) through oration or essay, that this poem is also about poetry itself – a solitary and concise still-life representing more than a mere glazed vessel.  Like language itself, interpretation also requires consensus.  The more people who agree with you, the more credible your ideas become.  Remember, read, think, and communicate.  Literature depends on your ability to read.

Andrew Magliozzi
Founder
Veritas Tutors