Literary texts often have systems of metaphors
When we discussed Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” we located one metaphor or piece of figurative language. Literary texts often have systems of metaphors: a series of figurative lines that evoke the same theme (for example: living death in Emily Dickinson’s #449). Locate the system of metaphors that structures Emma Lazarus’s “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport,” identifying 3 – 4 pieces of figurative language that, taken together, build a common theme.
Your task is to write a close reading of approximately 300 words, with a thesis that establishes the relationship between the images you locate. If you haven’t yet reviewed my notes on close reading, please do so before you begin writing. I want to reiterate a few technical and structural instructions for this assignment; if the instructions are confusing, click the hyper-links and/or write a Clearest / Muddiest Point question in the appropriate forum.
Do not list your lines. Integrate them, as quoted and cited textual evidence, into the body of your close reading.
Aim for no more than 10% quoted material. If you need to trim your quotes, choose the most exceptional parts of the line or paraphrase with a line note at the end of the sentence. For example, a citation that looked like this (5) would indicate that you’re referring to the fifth line of Lazarus’s poem.
Analyze Lazarus’s poem, rather than drawing on received or incomplete knowledge of the Scripture she references. That strategy tends to shorthand collective and individual Jewish experiences, asserting how non-Jews see Jews rather than how Jews define their communities and histories. What matters to a close reading is how the speaker encounters and describes the Synagogue at Newport.
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