Comparing authorial choices
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Flip to reveal answersWhat are ‘big’ authorial choices?
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Question
What are ‘big’ authorial choices?
Answer
Whole-work decisions: form, structure, perspective, genre.
Question
Why compare big choices?
Answer
They show you read each work as a designed whole — high-level analysis.
Question
What must you always add?
Answer
The effect — never just name the choice.
Question
Example of a structural choice?
Answer
Chronological order vs beginning at the end and working backwards.
Question
Example of a perspective choice?
Answer
First-person vs omniscient vs unreliable vs multiple voices.
Question
Example of a form choice?
Answer
A tight sonnet vs a sprawling novel.
Question
Which criterion does this serve?
Answer
B1 — analysis of authorial choices (and B2 to compare them).
Question
‘Architecture, not bricks’ means?
Answer
Compare whole-work design, not only line-level devices.
Question
A genre choice to compare?
Answer
How each work uses or bends its genre's conventions (tragedy, satire…).
Question
Common missed opportunity?
Answer
Only comparing small devices, never the big structural choices.
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Topic 4.8 hub
Comparing authorial choices
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