246 / Types of Writing
Other aspects of the paper are typical. The paragraph structure, supporting details,
organizational plan, transitional devices, sentence structures, and formal style all fol-
low the characteristics of a satisfactory literary analysis. While certainly Moby Dick
provides ample materials for thousands of additional pages of analysis, the writer
has dealt suitably with a single symbol and showed its effect on the novel.
analysis of literary Works
When asked to analyze an entire literary work—either a long, complicated novel or a
single-page poem—you should take a systematic approach. The analysis of a literary
work focuses on several related ideas or elements, traces them throughout the work,
and illustrates how those ideas or elements affect the work as a whole.
Because literary analysis may take so many directions, however, you should best
examine its possibilities by looking first at its general characteristics and the general
process for writing it, and then at a series of examples.
The examples for drama, nonfiction, and poetry, like those earlier for author and for
literary elements, focus on Emily Dickinson. By comparing these examples, you will
better be able to see how various kinds of literary analyses take separate approaches,
even when they deal with similar subjects. In addition, each example includes its own
analysis. Together, the examples and analyses in this section and in the preceding sec-
tions combine to present a solid foundation on which to build your own analysis.
CHARACTERISTICS
A literary analysis of a complete work will be similar to that of an analysis for liter-
ary elements; however, certain additional details usually appear. In general, a literary
analysis of a specific work
• shows evidence of a thorough understanding of the entire work as a
representative of its genre,
• includes an introduction naming the work and its author, and, as necessary,
naming the type within the genre, such as Elizabethan, contemporary, musical,
or morality (types of drama); biography, article, essay, or journal (types of
nonfiction); historical, science fiction, fantasy, or Russian (types of novels),
• analyzes a combination of literary elements as they relate to one another or as
they work together to achieve an overall effect,
• includes a topic or thesis sentence that states the approach of the analysis and
at least implies the organizational plan [see Writing a Paragraph and Writing a
Multi-Paragraph Paper in Chapter 2, Writing],
• follows a clear organizational plan,