to address

Where? (Contextualisation)

 Situate and/or contextualise the passage. Give any information needed to make the passage intelligible to the reader, but keep to elements of plot/ characters/situation etc. that are relevant to an understanding of the passage; don’t summarise the whole plot.

 What is the passage’s function? (for the text as a whole? with regard to the reader? In a certain historical, political or cultural context?)

What? (Analysis of the Structure, Argument, and Narrative Perspective)

 Define the central idea(s) / theme(s) / mood/ feeling, if any. Analyse the progression/ movement/ narrative structure of the passage: the stages of an argument, the interaction of the characters, the stages of succession of events.

 Analyse the narrative perspective: do you find 1st person narration (récit à la première personne); 3rd person narration (récit à la troisième personne); omniscient narration (narration omnisciente); restricted / multiple points of view (point de vue restreint/multiple), authorial intrusion (intrusion de l’auteur), etc. – or a mixture of these?

 Is the narrative perspective consistent or changing and what effects are created by this? What is the relationship between narrator/speaker and reader/audience? Does the author make use of any of the following: direct/indirect speech (discours direct/indirect), free indirect discourse (style indirect libre), interior monologue (monologue intérieur)?

How? (Style and Rhetoric)

 Syntax: simple/ complex? Departures from normal syntax? Role of questions (rhetorical?), exclamations?

 Use of tenses, of pronouns?

 Arrangements of words: repetition (répétition), parallelism (parallélisme), etc.

 Vocabulary: range? register? Is it pictorial/ emotive/ abstract/...?

 Tone: polemical/ sarcastic/ sentimental/ nostalgic etc.

 Non-literal uses of language: irony (ironie), hyperbole (hyperbole), understatement (litote), metaphor (métaphore), metonymy (métonymie). Are they frequent or not? What is the effect of particular expressions?

 Sound: alliteration (allitération), assonance (assonance), onomatopoeia (onomatopée). What is the created effect?

 In the case of a verse, define the metre and rhyme scheme (if used) and analyse their effect.

	Created by Faith Summon over 11 years ago

Undergraduate French (Grammar) Note on Commentary, created by Faith Summon on 18/05/2015.

Commentary