Close Reading in the Secondary Classroom. Jeff Flygare
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• Act 2, scene 2 (the first long exchange between Romeo and Juliet)
• Act 3, scene 1 (the fight that causes Romeo to intervene)
• Act 3, scene 2 (Juliet’s “Gallop apace” speech)
• Act 5, scene 3 (the final scene, which includes the deaths of Romeo and Juliet)
Of course, there are many more scenes that might be added to this list. All or any of these would offer good selections for close reading. However, the teacher decides to look closer at act 1, scene 4, and particularly at Mercutio’s famous Queen Mab speech. In The Riverside Shakespeare (Evans & Tobin, 1997), the Queen Mab speech in act 1, scene 4 is forty-one lines long. Though it is possible to close read the entire speech, it is lengthy, so the teacher decides to select a shorter passage to ask students to analyze deeply. Each reader will bring a different perspective to the table that will color the interpretation of the elements (see the section Teacher Preparation). Considering the subject matter of the passage, the teacher identifies two reasons why the passage appears in the play as justification for having students consider the passage. One reason is that Shakespeare uses this passage to develop the character of Mercutio, a friend of Romeo’s who is easily drawn into excess, spirit, and anger, thus aligning with the meaning of his name as one who is changeable. Another reason for the speech is to comment on the nature of dreams, which both Romeo and Mercutio claim they have experienced recently in the scene. In the speech, Mercutio supports his earlier claim, “Dreamers often lie.” He initially wishes to make fun of Romeo’s intense sadness over the loss of his first love in the play, Rosaline. Over the course of the speech, Mercutio becomes quickly agitated, starting by kidding Romeo about the influence of the fairies in his dream and ending by being filled with anger at the power of dreams to unmask hidden emotions in many people.
To choose one piece of this speech, the teacher starts by considering the academic purpose of asking students to close read the speech. If the purpose is to focus on Shakespeare’s ability to quickly and effectively develop imagery in his poetry, the first section describing how Queen Mab arrives would be a good candidate. If the focus is on the mercurial nature of Mercutio and tracking the changes in his emotions across the speech, the second half (when he begins to work himself into agitation) would be a good candidate. The teacher could also use the checklists later in the chapter (pages 26–27) to help determine the right focus.
Assume the teacher wants to focus on Shakespeare’s abilities to use imagery. She first narrows the long speech into the section that deals specifically with that developing imagery, lines 1–17:
MERCUTIO
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out a’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
Her traces of the smallest spider web,
Her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid.
(Shakespeare, 1595/1997b, p. 1111)
This would make a fine text for close reading. However, a teacher might decide to focus students’ attention on an even narrower section. This would require and enable them to look very closely at a short piece of text. The following is an example of an imagery-filled segment of the previous selection:
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