John Guillory considers close reading within the larger history of reading and writing as cultural techniques.
 
At a time of debate about the future of “English” as a discipline and the fundamental methods of literary study, few terms appear more frequently than “close reading,” now widely regarded as the core practice of literary study. But what exactly is close reading, and where did it come from? Here John Guillory, author of the acclaimed Professing Criticism, takes up two puzzles. First, why did the New Critics—who supposedly made close reading central to literary study—so seldom use the term? And second, why have scholars not been better able to define close reading?
 
For Guillory, these puzzles are intertwined. The literary critics of the interwar period, he argues, weren’t aiming to devise a method of reading at all. These critics were most urgently concerned with establishing the judgment of literature on more rigorous grounds than previously obtained in criticism. Guillory understands close reading as a technique, a particular kind of methodical procedure that can be described but not prescribed, and that is transmitted largely by demonstration and imitation.
 
Guillory’s short book will be essential reading for all college teachers of literature. An annotated bibliography, curated by Scott Newstok, provides a guide to key documents in the history of close reading along with valuable suggestions for further research. 

A record of a teacher’s lifelong love affair with the beauty, wit, and profundity of Paradise Lost, celebrating John Milton’s un-doctrinal, complex, and therefore deeply satisfying perception of the human condition. After surveying Milton’s recurrent struggle as a reconciler of conflicting ideals, this Primer undertakes a book-by-book reading of Paradise Lost, reviewing key features of Milton’s “various style,” and why we treasure that style. Cavanagh constantly revisits Milton the singer and maker, and the artistic problems he faced in writing this almost impossible poem. This book is emphatically for first-time readers of Milton, with little or no prior exposure, but with ambition to encounter challenging poetry. These are readers who tell you they “have always been meaning to read Paradise Lost,” who seek to enjoy the epic without being overwhelmed by its daunting learning and expansive frame of reference. Avoiding the narrowly specialized focus of most Milton scholarship, Cavanagh deals forthrightly with issues that recur across generations of readers, gathering selected voices—from scholars and poets alike—from 1674 through the present. Lively and jargon-free, this Primer makes Paradise Lost accessible and fresh, offering a credible beginning to what is a great intellectual and aesthetic adventure.