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 about 9 years ago

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