Prose Close Reading Chart #1

Prose Close Reading Passage Essay #1

What could have caused this sudden, destructive outburst?  More, surely, than a mere flouting of parental will.  M--- therefore tried to imagine it from their point of view.  A child goes blind, all known cures fail until, after more than a dozen years, a new physician with a novel procedure begins to make her see again.  The prognosis is optimistic, and the parents are rewarded as last for their love, wisdom, and medical courage.  But then the girl plays, and their world is turned upside down.  Before, they had been in charge of a blind virtuoso; now, sight had rendered her mediocre.  If she continued playing like that, her career would be over.  But even assuming that she rediscovered all her former skill, she would lack the originality of being blind.  She would be merely one pianist among many others.  And there would be no reason for the empress to continue her pension.  Two hundred gold ducats had made a difference to their lives, and how, without it, would they commission works from leading composers?

 M--- understood such a dilemma, but it could not be his primary concern.  He was a physician, not a musical impresario.  In any case, he was convinced that once Maria Theresia became accustomed to the sight of her hands on a keyboard, once observation ceased altering her performance, her skill would not merely return, but develop and improve.  For how could it possibly be an advantage to be blind?  Furthermore, the girl had chosen openly to defy her parents and continue the cure.  How could he disappoint her hopes?  Even if it meant distributing cudgels to his servants, he would defend her right to live under his roof.

  Yet it was not just the frenzied parents who were threatening the household.  Opinion at court and in society had turned against the physician who had walled up a young woman and now refused to return her to her parents.  That the girl herself also refused did not help M—‘s case: in the eyes of some it merely confirmed him as a magician, a betwitcher whose hypnotic powers might not cure, but could certainly enslave.  Moral fault and medical fault intertwined, giving birth to scandal.  Such a miasma of innuendo arose in the imperial city that Professor Stoerk was provoked into action.  Withdrawing his previous endorsement of M---‘s activities, he now wrote, on 2 May 177-, demanding that M--cease his “imposture” and return the girl (Barnes 181-182).

Prose Close Reading Chart #2

Prose Close Reading Passage Essay #2

What people want to know, whether they ask it directly or not, is how I fell in love with Stuart and married him, then fell in love with Oliver and married him, all within as short a space as is legally possible.  Well the answer is I did just that I did just that.  I don’t especially recommend you try it, but I promise it’s possible.  Emotionally as well as legally.

I genuinely loved Stuart.  I fell in love with him straightforwardly, simply.  We got on, the sex worked, I loved the fact he loved me—and that was it.  And then, after we were married, I fell in love with Oliver, not simply at all, but very complicatedly, entirely against my instincts and my reason.  I refused it, I resisted it, I felt intensely guilty.   I also felt intensely excited, intensely alive, intensely sexy.  No, as a matter of fact we didn’t ‘have an affair,’ as the saying goes.  Just because I’m half French people start muttering ménage à trois.  It wasn’t remotely like that.  It felt much more primitive for a start.  And besides, Oliver and I didn’t sleep with one another until Stuart and I had separated.  Why are people such experts on what they don’t know about? 

The point is you can love two people, one after the other, one interrupting the other, like I did.  You can love them in different ways.  And it doesn’t mean one love is true and the other is false.  That’s what I wish I could have convinced Stuart.  I loved each of them truly.  You don’t believe me?  Well, it doesn’t matter, I no longer argue the case.  I just say: it didn’t happen to you , did it?  It happened to me. 

And looking back, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.  Long afterwards my mother said, apropos of some other emotional situation, I can’t remember, some twosome or threesome, she said ‘The heart has been made tender, and that is dangerous.’  I could see what she meant.  Being in love makes you liable to fall in love.  Isn’t that a terrible paradox?  Isn’t that a terrible truth? (Barnes 15-17).

Poetry Close Reading Chart #1

Poetry Close Reading Essay #1

No, love is not dead in this heart these eyes and this mouth that announced the start of its own funeral. Listen, I've had enough of the picturesque, the colorful and the charming. I love love, its tenderness and cruelty. My love has only one name, one form. Everything disappears. All mouths cling to that one. My love has just one name, one form. And if someday you remember O you, form and name of my love, One day on the ocean between America and Europe, At the hour when the last ray of light sparkles on the undulating surface of the waves, or else a stormy night beneath a tree in the countryside or in a speeding car, A spring morning on the boulevard Malesherbes, A rainy day, Just before going to bed at dawn, Tell yourself-I order your familiar spirit-that I alone loved you more and it's a shame you didn't know it. Tell yourself there's no need to regret: Ronsard and Baudelaire before me sang the sorrows of women old or dead who scorned the purest love. When you are dead You will still be lovely and desirable. I'll be dead already, completely enclosed in your immortal body, in your astounding image forever there among the endless marvels of life and eternity, but if I'm alive, The sound of your voice, your radiant looks, Your smell the smell of your hair and many other things will live on inside me. In me and I'm not Ronsard or Baudelaire I'm Robert Desnos who, because I knew and loved you, Is as good as they are. I'm Robert Desnos who wants to be remembered On this vile earth for nothing but his love of you. A la mysterieuse - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19461#sthash.o7hvmIdt.dpuf

Poetry Close Reading Chart #2