H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e4 4the sound- texture of a passage, or fasten on what seem significant
ambiguities, or look at the way grammar and syntax are put to
work. You can examine the emotional attitudes that a passage
seems to take up to what it is presenting, or focus on some revealing
paradoxes, discrepancies and contradictions. Tracking down the
unspoken implications of what is said can sometimes be impor-
tant. Judging the tone of a passage, and how this may shift or waver,
can be equally productive. It can be helpful to try to define the
exact quality of a piece of writing. It may be sombre, off- hand,
devious, colloquial, terse, jaded, glib, theatrical, ironic, laconic,
artless, abrasive, sensuous, sinewy and so on. What all these critical
strategies have in common is their heightened sensitivity to
language. Even exclamation marks may be worth a few sentences
of critical comment. One might call all this the ‘micro’ aspects of
literary criticism. But there are ‘macro’ issues too, such as character,
plot, theme, narrative and the like, and it is to these that we can
now turn.