You've Been Tricked (Into Literary Analysis)

During high school, it made me sad to see people despise literary analysis. Complaints cropped up frequently, with my peers believing close reading a text was too complicated, difficult, or—more regrettably—unnecessary. There were always questions. Did we need to know why a poet broke their stanzas into four quatrains instead of eight couplets? Is the exact definition of historical slang important? Or, of course, the dreaded declaration from a particularly brave student: "The curtains are just blue." Though I don't like that phrase, I can't say I always blamed my peers for their distaste. There was a time that, I too, disliked literary analysis; not because I didn't want to do the work, but because I didn't want to be wrong.

However, as I’ve gone through high school and undergrad, I've developed a love for literary analysis and realized the purpose of it isn't to be right or wrong. It's to analyze, find meaning, and present an argument about the text with evidence. While most believe they've left the process behind in their high school or college English classes, I think we've tricked ourselves into analysis without even it.

There's a small form of literary analysis that comes from something innocuous, beloved, and everyday: a music playlist.

I'm not sure if I know anyone who uses music streaming services without having at least one playlist, even if that playlist only houses their liked songs. Though most people I've met have more playlists than just one, varying from different music eras and setting certain moods to dedications for seasons, hyper-specific feelings, and more.

It’s deceptively simple, but the act of creating a thoughtful music playlist is literary analysis. A Purdue Owl presentation breaks literary analysis down into four components:

1.     An argument about a literary work, not just summary.

2.     A clear, debatable thesis about meanings, themes, or techniques.

3.     A persuasive text written to convince the reader of your interpretation of a literary work.

4.     A process of critical thinking.

A music playlist, then, can be an argument with a thesis, persuasive text, and the critical thought required to craft it.

` Consider this scenario: you create a playlist called "Favorites." The body of the playlist is an argument in itself; you're claiming these are your favorite songs. The thesis is the title clearly displaying the theme, and the songs act as persuasive text and evidence. To create this playlist, you undergo the critical thinking process while listening to various songs and examining their individual components (beat, lyrics, singer's voice, themes, tones, etc) to determine whether or not it fits into the "Favorites" playlist.

We can take this a step further and examine a specific playlist. Spotify user Danielle has a playlist called “songs that feel like fall 🍂,” and it’s composed of over 16 hours of music with 112,210 saves. Again, the playlist is the argument; the thesis is the title; the individual songs are its persuasive text; and Danielle's creation process represents critical thinking. We know Danielle has a successful argument, too, because there are 112,210 individuals who agreed with and enjoyed her playlist enough to save it. If Danielle had a “bad argument” (like having Christmas music interjected in the middle of the playlist), there would be significantly less saves.

It's that simple, despite what's often believed about literary analysis. It's easy to conflate a fear of having a "wrong" argument about a poem, short story, or play with a genuine dislike of analyzing literature. People are afraid of being seen as stupid, stuck in the rigidness of a text, or simply seeing it as overinflated intellectualism—so they retreat into dislike instead of confronting fear.

My own first experience with the close reading required for literary analysis wasn't in a high school English class. It was in my bedroom. For years, I utilized Spotify and created playlists for plays I did in high school. I'd spend hours hunting songs and doing line-by-line examinations alongside the scripts to create the best playlist of my ability, frequently mirroring character arcs, themes, and tones. By the time I entered AP English Language my junior year, I already knew how to close read without even realizing I'd been doing it. At first, I was just as worried about literary analysis as my peers, but after I saw the similarities between making playlists and engaging with the text, it lessened. This was, ultimately, what fueled my sadness for my peers in high school who disliked literary analysis, because l know how fun it can be after you shake off your fears of being right or wrong and focus on analyzing.

If you're one to hesitate at analyzing literature for any reason, I encourage you to examine the things you do every day—like making a playlist—and consider how wonderfully capable you are without even realizing it. Be not afraid of literary analysis; you're already doing it anyway!