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Showing posts from May, 2018

How I analyze a literary text (with the example of Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death-“)

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Hello and welcome to The Young Reader’s Review ! In his Limits of Interpretation (1990), Umberto Eco distinguishes “semantic interpretation” from “critical interpretation”. “Semantic interpretation” would be reading material on a linguistic level and not analyzing the text in terms of literature, in other words, being a “naïve reader”, meanwhile “critical interpretation” would be doing exactly that. It is one thing to understand a text. It is another to understand it: to dissect it to understand its intricacies in order to reveal “its hidden depths”. Umberto Eco would also say that my phrasing is maladroit, that there is no such thing as a universal “depth” to a literary text since everybody will experience interpretation differently. That is exactly what my blog is for: I not only share with you my “thoughts on a book or poem” but I share with you my interpretation. That is where resides one of the many beauties of literature: your interpretation of a text will always be unique,

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

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Hello and welcome to The Young Reader’s Review! May has arrived, already marking the fifth month of two thousand eighteen (that went by quickly). Moments ago, I was idly lying on my bed, a drowsy open book resting on my chest. The unripe pre-summer sun, crawling its way into my room, bathed it in its irradiant and warm light. Suddenly, I had the sudden realization that I hadn’t made the classic “good ‘ol book review” in  months . Aghast, breaking out of mellowness’ trance, I tried to think of a beloved literary pearl that I could recommend. In this state, a sentence came to mind:  Don’t panic . A small grin etched itself on my face. This quote considerably shortened my meditation for a title, a book, a world, a universe immediately came to mind. Behold,  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  (1979) by Douglas Adams. Enjoy.  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  and I were not your typical love story: I did not blindly fall into its arms, seduced by the charm of its ti