CLOSE READING ARCHIVE
In conjunction with the publication of John Guillory’s On Close Reading, this online Archive documents what scholars have written about close reading from the prehistory of modern literary studies to the present.
Compiling over 800,000 words, this archive corroborates that the phrase “close reading” has remained in contentious circulation for nearly a century. Constructed on the principle of quotation rather than narration, the archive recovers a tacit discourse that is happening in, below, and through all sorts of other arguments.
As you explore the archive, you might find yourself surprised by the sheer volume of writing on this topic, which has steadily increased since the 1970s, apparently unaffected by shifting disciplinary tides. Patterns begin to emerge: early comments about close reading tend to stem from outside the university, while contemporary scholars increasingly attempt to establish the genealogy of the practice.
Searching permits you to gather your own harvest—whether of one critic’s discussions of “close reading,” an anthology of poems, or even a painting. Perhaps those who survey the archive will assemble their own alternative accounts—so much the better. As Edward Said held: “single phrases” can “contain a whole library of meanings.”
Praise
John Guillory’s On Close Reading (which includes a remarkable bibliography by Scott Newstok)
—Johanna Winant, Boston Review
a rich annotated bibliography on close reading compiled by Scott Newstok
a veritable mountain of scholarly discussion, which has just recently been painstakingly and exhaustively chronicled by Scott Newstok
—Jeffrey R. Di Leo, The Comparatist
Scott Newstok’s remarkable annotated bibliography and accompanying online resource tracing the forgotten history of “close reading” as a term and as a practice.
On Close Reading concludes with Scott Newstok’s annotated bibliography of writing about close reading; it draws on his much longer list at www.closereadingarchive.org. This generous resource deserves further attention: in fact, as Newstok says, its contents “cumulatively confirm that ‘close reading’ focalizes anxieties beyond the ‘mere’ technique of reading a literary text”
— Michael Rizq, Cambridge Quarterly
Scott Newstok’s invaluable bibliography appended to Guillory’s essay shows how the adoption of the Common Core Standards in the early 21st century elevated “close reading” to a key place in schools’ curriculum.
—John McGowan, American Literary History
That literature is further itemized in the book’s annotated bibliography and accompanying online archive, both compiled by Scott Newstok. Complete with summaries, sample passages, and embedded links, the archive tabulates seemingly every mention or description of “close reading” and its antecedents in English since the 16th century—an astonishing and faintly Ozymandian monument of scholarly metadata.
—Colin Vandenburg, n+1
Scott Newstok’s useful bibliography
a superb and comprehensive annotated bibliography of close reading compiled by Scott Newstok
—Isobel Armstrong, Modern Philology
The annotated bibliography, provided by Scott Newstok, further supports the return of close reading, as does his fascinating “Close Reading Archive,” which acts as an extension of the annotated bibliography, cataloguing all the mentions of “close reading” in scholarly work going back over a hundred years.
Scott Newstok’s annotated bibliography, a treasure in itself, elegantly complements Guillory’s investigation.
― Douglas Mao, Johns Hopkins University
But what makes this volume more significant still is Newstok’s annotated bibliography, which adds even greater richness to Guillory’s essay, and which would constitute a notable contribution even if it had been published by itself. The online database of primary and secondary sources about close reading, https://www.closereadingarchive.org, is fantastic as well. Put together, the efforts of Guillory and Newstok make On Close Reading a book that is incredibly valuable for thinking about the concepts our work relies upon—and for putting these concepts into practice.
—Joshua Gang, Modern Philology
Finally, no account of On Close Reading would be complete without acknowledging the Annotated Appendix, compiled and commented upon by Scott Newstok, professor of English at Rhodes College. The Appendix takes up nearly 40 pages, almost half of Guillory’s contribution, and offers potted histories, detailed annotations, and bibliographic recommendations for key close reading texts. For rank-and-file teachers, most useful are Newstok’s two dedicated sections on “Secondary- School Pedagogy,” the first encompassing the 1960s and 70s wave of handbooks, teacher guides, and summaries, and the second taking up the centrality of the CCSS in the 2010s. This appendix is supplemented by a remarkable online repository—closereadingarchive.org—which allows you to search a comprehensive database of articles, books, chapters, and dissertations which have taken up the topic. In addition, Newstok has included a valuable Teaching section, which contains a litany of links to close reading resources (including dozens of “How To” guides from academics and libraries), syllabuses, and recent and forthcoming conferences.
an extraordinarily comprehensive bibliography compiled by Scott Newstok—a gift to the discipline that accompanies the text of On Close Reading
an exhaustive annotated bibliography compiled by Rhodes College professor Scott Newstok that demonstrated that more people are writing about close reading now than ever.
40 pages of annotated bibliography, prepared by Scott Newstok of Rhodes College and whom Guillory acknowledges as being a “a collaborator on this project in a measure difficult fully to convey.”
—Cobi Chiodi Powell, Cleveland Review of Books
The very useful annotated bibliography at the back of the book, produced by Scott Newstok, which cites numerous examples and discussions of close reading, attests to its return to prominence in recent years.
—Timothy Aubry, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Close reading is commonly associated with the New Critics: a loose group of critics and scholars in the 1920s and 1930s who produced exemplary readings of literary works, often lyric poems, that prioritized ambiguity, figurative language and unity. Yet, as Scott Newstok’s generous annotated bibliography shows, the term “close reading” rarely appears in their writing.
—Christy Edwall, Times Literary Supplement
By way of conclusion, I would like to praise the book for its inclusion of an extraordinarily helpful resource in the form of an annotated bibliography of close reading. Compiled by Scott Newstok, this nearly forty-page bibliography is a chronology of major critical interventions on the question of close reading. It is simply invaluable to the researcher to have to hand such a thorough gathering of critical sources on close reading. For this, scholars owe Scott Newstok a large debt of gratitude.
—Michael Rawl, Front Porch Republic
the annotated bibliography by Scott Newstok, which meticulously details the term’s circulation and accompanies this essay.