Rereading
can be a great key to analyzing a piece of literature. It allows for a new
emotional approach that has the possibility of either enhancing or detracting
from a text. Most very accomplished books achieve multiple layers of analysis (while
occasionally still achieving resonance and poetic structure as in Shakespeare).
Personally, I prefer to reread texts after a length of time away from the book
(like Stephen King suggests for written work in his book, On Writing) in order to reevaluate not only the book but also my
responses. Often, as many previous blog posts have suggested, these books are
our favorites or those most emotionally touching. Rereading can enhance our
reading experience or alternatively diminish it.
My
expectations of an “accomplished” text, or book, can somewhat rival that of
William Darcy’s accomplished lady (That is, witty, somewhat narcissistic, well
accomplished in both allusions and intertextuality, humorous—in a self
gratified way, eloquent language and structure, set in a complex world with
characters and plot equally of depth and believable development and
intelligence, etc) and as such, I really appreciate (and in some cases expect)
a book that can withstand multiple rereading while the reader is still able to glean
some new meaning or allusion previously undetected. We see such excellent texts
in all that is written by Shakespeare, but also in the works of Douglas Adam
and even Katie Bridges. In such works (and even in less well-composed texts),
rereading phrases, paragraphs, or even an entire text for any of a variety of
reasons (refreshment, for future allusion, reevaluation, etc) is a wonderful
practice. Additionally, attempting to constantly call to memory books or texts
you’ve read in the past really encourages such rereadings and more developed
analyses. In my experience, rereading any amount of text can be infinitely
helpful and should be encouraged. Yet the quality of the reread largely depends
on the text subjected to said rereading.
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