What is close reading? How close is close reading? Close reading has become a skill that students and job candidates are expected to know well. Jonathan Culler, an English professor at Cornell, presented The Closeness of Close Reading in 2009. The effective organization, point of view of the passage, the audience, and the word choices are some of the elements in this passage that are worth look into. Culler demonstrates what close reading really is by defining what close reading is not.  

Culler organized the passage effectively. First, he gave a definition of close reading, "examining closely the language of a literary work or study," which gives us a general idea (Culler 2). To better understand the term "close reading", author, on the other hand, described/explained the term using its counter-meaning "distance reading"/"sloppy reading"/"casual reading"(Culler 3). However, there is not an antonym for close reading. Therefore, he gave examples of other people's thoughts about distant reading and then rejected them. He took Franco Moretti's definition of distant reading as an example, "Large-scale trends, the publication of translations, the length of titles of novels, or marriage patterns," but he said it is rarely reading (Culler 2). In addition, Culler provided another example; he thinks that the marriage pattern and the extreme valuable perspectives in Jane Austen's novels are too different from regular literary analysis to be the contradiction of close reading. Later, he analyzes, "this distant reading would turn any sort of attention to an individual text into close reading" (Culler 3). Distant reading can help us pay more attention to close reading. Since close reading does not have an exact antonym, it cannot be defined only by the opposite of distant reading. Culler mentioned that sloppy reading, casual reading, or literary history, etc. could be compared to close reading. After all those comparison, he finally went back to close reading. He explained that the reason we have trouble finding what is the opposite of close reading is that close reading is more like a slogan than particular practice. He gave another definition of close reading by Peter Middleton, "our contemporary term for a heterogeneous and largely unorganized set of practices and assumptions" (Culler 3). Culler introduced a problem of what is the definition of close reading in the beginning, and he compared and contrasted with other things that are not necessarily the opposite but different from close reading. Lastly, he talked about close reading again at the end of passage.

The audience of this passage is professors and teachers in English department, or even foreign language departments. Culler is writing this article with an English professor point of view in this article as he said, "close reading... a skill that we expect our students to master" (Culler 2). He assumed that students and job candidates know how to close read well. He said that close reading the essential of literary study. Again, he thinks he is a Saussurian, so he believes we should define terms by the opposite of it. From his point of view, the way to define close reading is that define what is opposite of close reading and then see what close reading is not. To see if a person is good, find some evil people and see if that person is opposite from the evil people is an analogy. In addition, Culler wrote, "What contrasts with close reading is...something like sloppy reading, or casual reading..."(Culler 3) He is comparing close reading to sloppy reading and casual reading together, which means close reading needs to be very careful and pay attention to details. Close reading is a slow-paced reading. It emphasizes on the details more than the general plot and is usually high-quality reading whereas distant reading focusing on the fast speed and low quality.

For the reason of that close reading is derived from different traditions and shares different tastes among different readers, in a sense of criticism, it varies from people to people. Nonetheless, we all find close reading at least captures people's attentions. In other words, close reading is important. Close reading is one kind of language practice, no matter if it is homogeneous and organized or not. It is important to people's daily life, especially when instant messaging, and abbreviated text appear in nowadays society, which people tend to shorten their word to get useful information. According to De Man's description, the stubbornness of texts could be one of the crucial things of practicing close reading. It is simply because reader would grant more time and efforts concerning to the interpretation of the text or a single word, which emphasize on how meaning is conveyed or produced. However, explicit instructions, rules, or particular operations of close reading may also stop people from fully acknowledging the essence of close reading. A strategy modeled by Roland Barthes in S/Z is to oblige students to comment on every clause in a passage, identifying the codes at work in producing whatever meaning they take to be at play there and in the connections between elements of this passage and those elsewhere in the text.

The word choices in the passage are interesting too. Culler chose words to emphasize the high status of close reading in literary field. "As a sine qua non of literary study" (Culler 2), and sine qua non comes from Latin. It literarily means to cause without, which leads to cannot exist without. Culler used sine qua non to show the importance of close reading in literary study because it has existed from the Latin period. What's more, "whatever other sorts of critical activities they may flamboyantly display,"(Culler 2) Culler writes. Flamboyant means fancy, colorful. It has the root flame in it, and it means shine beautifully like a flame. He used the word flamboyantly to stress the importance of close reading again. No matter how flamboyant the job candidates perform other skills, close reading is still expected. Also, when Culler gave an example of Moretti, "Moretti's fascinating analyses of..."(Culler 2) he used fascinating to describe Moretti's analyses of distant reading. Although he said it was "scarcely reading at all,"(Culler 2) he still used fascinating to respect others and appreciate others' work. In addition, "Perhaps what contrasts with close reading is...something like sloppy reading..."(Culler 3). The word sloppy means careless and not causal. Sloppy reading is when one reads over stuff and not really pay attention to the details, whereas close reading is mostly looking at the details. Because Culler put sloppy reading and close reading in contrast, he is thinking a part of close reading is reading careful. Furthermore, Culler explained, "The fact that we have difficulty saying what close reading is opposed to suggests that it has served as a slogan more than as a name for a particular definable practice" (Culler 3). Slogan means a short phrase, usually used in advertisements. Culler said close reading served as a slogan, which indicates close reading has become more and more noticeable. It is used more and more often. Close reading is getting more common in our daily lives that the professors and the employers want their students or employees to have the skill of close reading. Lastly, Culler wrote, "but this is scarcely reading at all" (Culler 2). The word scarcely is used a lot during the 1850s and it means almost not. Culler used a few old words to show that literature does not expire. Culler used the word to express that distant reading is almost no reading at all. Culler made a lot of interesting word choices in this passage.

The passage of The Closeness of Close Reading has a practical structure, strong point of view, and excellent word choices. Culler demonstrated close reading vividly by describing close reading and the opposite of close reading. Close reading is like what Peter Middleton said, "contemporary term for a heterogeneous and largely unorganized set of practices and assumptions" (Culler 3). Close reading takes a lot of practice and varies all the time. 
