Analyzing Form, Content and Context
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This document provides guidance on analyzing works through considering their form, content, and context. It defines key literary terms like form, content, context, connotation, and denotation. It also offers questions to consider from biographical, temporal, political, artistic, social, economic, and cultural perspectives to more deeply analyze and understand a work. The overall point is to think critically about works by examining multiple layers and perspectives.
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Analyzing Form, Content and Context
- 1. Ways of Analysis: Reading, thinking, seeing, and interpreting through a critical lens Hank Williams Summer 2012 SEEK Department, The City College of New York Summerseek.wordpress.com
- 2. Habits of Mind 2. What is the subject/ point? 3. Who says so? (What perspective?) 4. What evidence? 5. What’s the relevance/ connection? 6. So what? (Significance?) 7. What if? (Alternatives?) Adapted from CCNY SEEK coursepack, 2011
- 3. Form Content Context
- 4. r e e n What do G type we mean by Form? y l e a t St r m f o
- 5. Form 1.The style, type, or genre of a particular work. Genre refers to a recognizable sub category. 2.The structure or design of a particular work Adapted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1990)
- 6. Content The subject matter of a particular work Adapted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1990)
- 7. Context The biographical, cultural, social, historical, or political circumstances a particular work is created or set in Adapted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1990)
- 8. Connotation The further associations a word, image, sound, or sight makes us think of beyond the primary meaning. Adapted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1990)
- 9. Denotation The primary meaning or dictionary definition of a word, image, sound, or sight. Adapted from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1990)
- 10. What are you looking at?
- 13. Q: How did you know what those ads were for? A: Context!
- 14. In other words:
- 15. Some examples of context … Economic Political Biographical Social Artistic/ Aesthetic Temporal Cultural
- 16. Biographical Questions Who is /are the author, designer, artist, musician/composer, actor(s), director? (and what do we know about his/her/their work)? How does it relate to other work they’ve done? Does it represent a shift in artistic direction? Does the artist have a personal view of creative work? Does this conform to that view or challenge it?
- 17. Temporal Questions Where is/are the setting(s)? How do they relate to the storyline, design, or style of the work? Is the work consistent with the time period or are there anachronisms (things that don’t fit the time)? Are the anachronisms deliberate or do they represent a lack of attention to detail?
- 18. Political Questions Is there obvious commentary on political/ social issues ? What issues are they? Does the commentary or does it seem too harsh? Does it avoid or ignore obvious political issues?
- 19. Artistic/Aesthetic Questions What style(s)/ genres are represented? Is it a sub- genre? How does the work compare to other works of a similar style/ genre/ movement? Does it conform to the “type” or look/ sound/ feel different? (And is this a deliberate choice?) How well are specific artistic aspects done? (Example: do critics think the writing, directing, design, etc. is good? Why or why not--and do you agree?)
- 20. Social Questions What is going on in society at the time and what effect might it have on the work? Who does the work show/ talk about and in how are they presented? Does it reinforce or challenge stereotypes? Are the representations of people/ places valid? How does it present differences in race, gender, sexuality, or class status? Whose point of view does the work come from?
- 21. Economic Questions What are the book/ CD sales like or what are the film earnings?? Is the work seen as commercially successful? Are artistic compromises made for the sake of sales? Is the work an important creative statement even if it doesn’t have great commercial success?
- 22. Cultural Questions Are there wider cultural connections? How does it show/ critique/ comment on the wider cultural picture or use cultural elements? Does the artist have a personal view of creative work? Does this conform to that view or challenge it?
- 23. Research ideas A few thoughts to get you started… Find interviews/ profiles of author/ director/ actors/ musicians/ designers, etc. Find articles or books on the time period Find articles or books on the social or societal issues Find articles or books on the styles/genres or artistic methods used Find articles or statistics on the sales or box office Find articles or books examining cultural issues raised
- 24. Revised June, 2012 Some rights reserved This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. Questions? Compliments? hewilliams [at] ccny [dot] cuny [dot] edu
Notas del editor
- Shows the interrelationship between form and content. Example is the Michael Wesch video. Subject matter (content) is web 2.0 and the changing nature of how we share, organize, generate information. Much of his commentary is done through screen capture of changes to HTML code: form and content, in this case, actually converge.
- What is said, shown, sung, built, made, etc. as opposed to how it is done. The “what” is the Form; the “how” is the content.
- How do we know about the Harry Potter ad? One reason would be the context: it's a successful book and film franchise so even if we're not J.K.'Rowling fans, we've likely seen it somewhere, heard people talking, etc. If we see the trademark eyeglasses and face of the actor playing HP, we have a clue. So you see that knowing the context allows us to decode the content. So what are some of the current contexts? What's the storyline of the series? (War on Terror, often expressed in good vs. evil terms.) What's at stake in the film? (Ask if anyone's seen it.) What happens if the Hogwarts lose to Lord Voldemort? What's at stake? What happens if the Autobots lose to the Decepticons? Do the movie makers intend for us to read all of this into a film? Does it matter or are we going to read these things in anyway?
- What ends? How do you know? What cues are there in the photo?
- What’s going on at the time we’re talking about.
- Shows the interrelationship between form and content. Example is the Michael Wesch video. Subject matter (content) is web 2.0 and the changing nature of how we share, organize, generate information. Much of his commentary is done through screen capture of changes to HTML code: form and content, in this case, actually converge.