Talking with the Text
To become a more careful reader, the most important and helpful thing you
can do is
read, read, and reread, but there are some techniques that can make your
reading more
active. The most important point to keep in mind is that your goal is not
simply to
identify and list literary elements — although that’s a first step —
but to analyze their
effect. In other words, how do the choices the writer makes help to deliver
the work’s
message or meaning? We’ll discuss several strategies to help you become a
more active
reader, a reader who goes beyond summary to analysis and interpretation.
Think Aloud
As we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the first step to close
reading is to start
asking questions. These can be simple ones (such as the meaning of
unfamiliar vocabulary)
or more complex ones (such as the meaning suggested by figurative
language). Since
the goal
is to “talk with the text,” a good place to start is by talking to one another.
Pair up with a classmate and take turns reading and thinking out loud; that
is, read a
line or a sentence, then stop and comment. See what your partner has to
say. Then let him
or her read the next line or sentence, and repeat the process until you’ve
finished the text.
Although your comments can go in a number of directions, here are a few
suggestions:
• Pose questions about something that confuses you or about a possible
interpretation
• Identify unfamiliar vocabulary or allusions
• Note specific stylistic elements and their effect
• Rephrase inverted lines
• Make connections within the poem, or passage of fiction, noting any
repetitions,
patterns, or contrasts
Once you’ve gone through the text carefully by reading, talking,
questioning, and
analyzing, you have a strong foundation to either contribute to a
discussion in a
larger
group or prepare to write about the piece.
ACTIVITY •
Think aloud with a partner on the following poem by
Christina Georgina
Rossetti. Keep in mind that the title reflects an
old English proverb:
“Promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken.”
Promises like Pie-Crust
CHRISTINA
GEORGINA ROSSETTI
Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you;
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast, 5
Free to come as free to go;
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?
You, so warm, may once have been
Warmer towards another one; 10
I, so cold, may once have seen
Sunlight, once have felt the sun:
Who shall show us if it was
Thus indeed in time of old?
Fades the image from the glass 15
And the
fortune is not told.
If you promised, you might grieve
For lost liberty again;
If I promised, I believe
I should fret to break the chain: 20
Let us be the friends we were,
Nothing more but nothing less;
Many thrive on frugal fare
Who would perish of excess.
[1861]
This poem “Promises Like Pie-Crust” consists of three 8-line stanzas
with a basic ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, although she is not afraid to use
half-rhymes (such as promises/liberties and were/fare), there being one such in
each stanza.
The poem is not religious in tone but it
certainly has a “moral” to it. It is not possible to understand it without
being aware of the full meaning of the title, which comes from the well-known
saying: “Promises are like pie-crust — Made to be broken”. With that thought in
mind, the poem makes perfect sense and there is no need to invoke any other
connotations from either pies or crusts!
The
poem is clearly an address from one friend to another, with the assumption
being that, as the poet is a woman, the other party is a man, but that is not
the only possible interpretation. It begins with the line “Promise me no
promises”, so that the reader, forewarned with the message of the title, knows
immediately that the reason for this plea is that the speaker has absolutely no
confidence that any such promise will be kept.
The
message of the opening stanza (and indeed of the whole poem) is therefore that
the relationship that is envisaged must be conducted on the understanding that
both parties are complete equals and that neither will expect anything from the
other that they are not willing to give. Individuals must be able, as the third
line states, to keep their liberties by not committing themselves to each
other.
Something
to notice in this poem is that every statement and question that applies to one
party is balanced by an equivalent phrase that applies to the other. Thus the
second line, following the request for no promises, is “So will I not promise
you”, and the stanza ends with “For I cannot know your past” being balanced by
“And of mine what can you know?”
The
second stanza develops the point made in the closing couplet of the first, in that
it posits that “you, so warm” might have known others in the past and “I, so
cold” may “once have felt the sun”. The admission that the other party is
“warm”, in contrast to the speaker, might seem to break the theme of perfect
balance, but that is not really the case, because the end result is the same,
namely that without promises and revelations the two are still equal. They are
as they are, at the present time and without a past to complicate matters.
The
idea of not wanting to know the past, and thus being able to concentrate on the
present, is emphasised in this stanza with the rhetorical question: “Who shall
show us if it was / Thus indeed in time of old?”, to which the answer is, of
course, nobody. Without the enquiry, whether conducted through questions and
answers or via the medium of a fortune-teller’s “glass”, the past can be
forgotten as though it had never existed.
The
word “promise” is not used in the second stanza, but it reappears in the third
in a conditional form: “If you promised, you might grieve”. The grieving is for
the loss of liberty, which the speaker is desperate to preserve. Again, this is
expressed as applying to both parties with the balancing: “If I promised, I
believe / I would fret …”
The
conclusion is a plea for the status quo, namely that the pair should remain as
friends, “Nothing more but nothing less”, which echoes the fourth line of the
first stanza: “Never false but never true”. The final couplet leaves the reader
with the poem’s “moral”, which is that: “Many thrive on frugal fare / Who would
perish of excess”. The expression of this thought in the third person is
significant, though, in that the speaker cannot bring herself to express a
personal opinion but must rely on what she believes applies to the “many”.
The whole
poem, therefore, comes across as the expression of emotional coldness and
sterility. It is all about what must not happen, because the pain of making and
breaking promises, and of sharing past experiences, could be too great to bear.
The message seems to be that one’s sanity can only be preserved in a
relationship if one holds back and maintains one’s equality with the other
party by giving away the bare minimum in terms of commitment.
Or is
it? The idea that someone would advocate such a course, for fear of being hurt,
must strike the reader as being close to absurd. This reader takes the view
that what Christina Rossetti is doing here is pointing to that very absurdity.
This is not how lovers behave with each other. Falling in love is all about
taking emotional risks and playing with fire. Promises will be made, and of
course most of them will be broken. But so what?
On the
face of it, this is a poem about being friends and nothing more. However, the
very fact that the poet is expressing her concerns about what might happen if
promises are made shows that the thought has crossed her mind. She knows that
she is on the brink of making a commitment, and she appreciates that all
efforts to avoid doing so, by balancing all the pros and cons and sticking to preserving
her “liberty”, are artificial devices that sound ridiculous when rationalized
in the way they are here.
This is
therefore a poem that conveys a very different message to the one that, at
first reading, might be assumed. Christina Rossetti may talk about thriving on
“frugal fare”, but surely that is far from her real desire. The clue comes in
the fourth line; without promises being made and broken a couple may indeed
never be false, but neither will their love ever be true.
