Summary
The process of analyzing is personal and unique to the individual. When reading a piece of writing we all use lenses (theories) and rhetoric concepts to analyze it. Concepts such as who the audience is, what’s the purpose, and what is the genre all help understand the text as a whole. There are many different lenses that we as readers use to interpret a text. Not all lenses work the best for certain types of text. Often, some lenses work better for visual texts compared to fiction and nonfiction. The insight that you as a writer offer to your reader is just as important when it comes to analysis. In other words, it’s important to leave the audience with an idea that you want them to get out of your writing.
Response
I find it intriguing just how many tools there are when it comes to analyzing a piece of text. Factors such as the setting, timeline, ethnicity, intersectionality, just to name a few, all can completely change the way a text is interpreted and analyzed.
Question
With there being so many different ways to analyze a text, how can we truly know what a certain author from centuries ago really wanted us to take away from it?
The beauty of written text, is that no one knows what the author actually means to say with his or her words. That is why the best authors have the ability to write text with many meanings and lots of different ways to interpret it.
I think your question is a great one. With so many interpretations of a text, is it even possible to know what the “right” one is?
I frequently think about this when reading an older text. Life was different centuries ago, it’s possible we have no idea what an author may have really been trying to say.
I find the question you asked very interesting. Though I’ve never considered it myself, indeed, is it possible that our present day analysis of a text from centuries ago give us the proper understanding of the text as the author intended at the time he or she wrote it?
I also tend to think about this question often. How are people so sure that certain texts are meant to be interpreted a specific way?