I think that Carroll’s use of the term “analysis” corresponds roughly to Barnard’s use of the term “understanding.” Carroll defines analysis* in a footnote (!) on page 13:
By analysis I am referring to the operation of explaining the ways in which the elements in the work function to realize the points or purposes of the work, or how they cohere as a unified whole, or the way in which they manage to embody whatever the work is about.
The key idea here is the notion of a holistic understanding of the work, that is, one’s unified big-picture understand of what the work fundamentally is about. So, in Reynold’s case, Gatsby is a quintessential American novel of modernity (his holistic understanding) and he uses descriptions, classification, contextualizations, etc., to construct (i.e., “analyze*”) and support that holistic understanding.
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January 17, 2013 at 9:14 pm
ydreyban
While there are likely going to be a few more topics like this, I’d like to say that the discussion that we had in class was extremely helpful. While I was reading I was sort of half nodding my head internally saying “yea yea, I know the meaning of those words” but I realized that as I went further I wasn’t certain that I really “got” Carroll’s use of the six terms we discussed in class.
Or at least, I wasn’t quite clear on the semantic difference between say analysis and interpretation and other things that seem like they may have been interchangeable. I’m mostly cleared up and I think I’ll be better prepared to do critical analysis on a particular topic.
January 17, 2013 at 11:03 pm
Katie O'Donnell
I think someone started a page on definitions on this blog. Also, if someone hasn’t yet made a post and wants an idea to get them started, simply listing out the terms and quoting Carroll’s definitions (with maybe a simple example) would be an easy way to start. Jeff’s already started this in several of his latest posts. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little “cheat sheet” of terms.