A summary of Peter Barry’s “Tackling Textuality – With Theory”

In ”Tackling Textuality – With Theory” Peter Barry states that interpreting texts in a traditional way is an insufficient method and suggest to add four major parts to make a more complete approach, i.e. the literary theory. The author illustrates this by using an example of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73.

When interpreting a text in the traditional close reading, a reader usually has a couple of elements he carries out, without using any theory. Barry lists these as follows:

1. The reader looks for some overall structural pattern
2. The reader looks for similarity beneath apparent dissimilarity
3. The reader distinguishes between overt and covert content
4. The reader distinguishes between meaning and significance
5. The reader thinks in terms of genre
6. The reader reads the literal as metaphorical
7. The reader reads the surface of the work in precise literal words
8. The reader looks for micro - patterns in literary works
9. The reader identifies stages phases within a literary work
10. The reader reads in linguistic period, aware of semantic change

Barry states that these ten basics are necessary but not quite enough to understand a text. Therefore a literary theory that reveals certain things is much more reliable. The four features that Barry says will help us to reach beyond the text are:

1. Relationship between literature and history
2. Relationship between literature and language
3. Relationship between literature and gender
4. Relationship between literature and psychoanalysis

To demonstrate this, the author interprets a poem of Shakespeare, mentioned earlier. Having in mind the first and the second element of his theory, Barry tells us that we know more about the world and time of Shakespeare by the way of describing it. Some word choices in the poem can be interpreted both literarily and metaphorically. This means that the poem can tell us two things in the same time.

Dealing with literature and gender the author points out that the choice of words based on cultural stereotypes tells us if the poem is written by a man or a woman. In this case, the writer is a man.

Finally, the author explains the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis by pointing out how the writer of the poem uses a pre-emptive strategy to hide something by revealing it.
Later on, the author uses two different examples by applying only the second aspect of his theory. He does so in order to help us understand the deconstructive reading, which has close connotations with traditional close reading, but also in the same time, with literary theory. The deconstructive reading elements pointed out by author are: contradiction, aporia, shifts and absences. Each element is illustrated as a final point in the both examples. The author reveals the disunity of text in both cases.


Key words:

Literary theory
Close reading
Text interpretations
Literature
Deconstructive reading
Disunity