How elaborate can an analysis be if it regards a very short text, that isn't an excerpt that can be connected with other works, whose author we don't know, that has only one character, doesn't directly address any polemics or issues and is simply an "L'art pour l'art" piece?
I'm guessing it can be huge. A critic, an English teacher (hehehe) or just a reader over-thinking everything can pull out a whole cornucopia of hidden meanings, allusions, metaphors etc. He/she can infer the physical and mental state of the writer, connect this to sociological issues, to Marxism or feminism, to mythology or religion. Maybe someone was drunk or high or bored and scribbled the first thing that came onto his mind, but if you ask a critic, it can be a perfect reflection of his childhood traumas and related to the political events in the environment the writer grew up in.
And then, I'm asked to analyze something for my weekly journal! Can half a page of SOAPSTONE based writing really tell enough? And if not, can I really hope to dissect a text in such tiny and precise iotas with arguments that make sense? Probably not.
Then why try? For a grade? For fun? For that tiny piece of hope that my words can actually be perceived as something of great importance, of value, something that took time, intelligence and intellect to compose?
I don't know!
But I guess, if analysis can seem so absurd and preposterous, yet artistic and thoughfull, then whatever gibber I make up has the chance of being seen as refined. And then maybe even my text will be left in the hands, no, claws, of another mind that tries to find meanings, draw connections and formulate theories out of nothing.
Good luck to me, then. We'll see how that will work out.
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