Representation--a portrayal of a thing in another manner or medium. For our purposes, we will use "representation" to refer to the portrayal of a thing in the world--e. g. a place, person, or event--through a particular lens that emphasizes some aspects while de-emphasizing others. In studying literature, we will investigate the formal choices each author makes (decisions about form) and will speculate about why those choices were made.
Important processes in creating works of art are selection and combination: their creators select elements to include and then combine those selections in specific ways to highlight or downplay certain elements in the text.
Consider this short poem, "Dreams," by Langston Hughes.
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Here we might note the emphasis--through repetition and difference--of the two metaphors.
From here, a number of interpretive questions arise: In what ways do these metaphors differ? How are they similar? Why does it take two metaphors to express the poet's view? What does one metaphor do that the other does not? Though "die" and "go" share a similar meaning in some contexts, what differences between the words are dramatized here? Who is the speaker addressing? What is the form of address? What might motivate this speaker to share this advice?
Useful vocabulary: In describing details of textual representation, literary critics often use the verbs "characterize" and "represent" to describe the work done by the processes of selection and combination to shape a particular representation. as in "H. G. Wells characterizes the narrator as a supremely rational man."
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