Language Essay: Commentary on chapter 37 Pride and Prejudice

Be sure to construct your commentary according to the commentary method: problematized intro, announcing the plan of the approach (which can either be linear by following the major parts you have identified in the excerpt), or thematic (= compound commentary).
- In both cases, the commentary must constantly 'weave' links with the text: you analyze an element, and you quote the text in quotation marks (line numbers) to show what you are analyzing.
This is the way all the documents of the course are written, so you have to do the same.
- Knowledge of the book is essential to identify the major issues at stake in the passage, its function in the structure of the story, and, from there, to derive a problematization of it.
- Before embarking on writing, you should have written your entire introduction, and defined the type of commentary plan you are going to follow (see above) = you need to know where you are going.
- In the different parts of the commentary, avoid paraphrasing at all costs (paraphrasing is repeating in your own words what the text says, it's like summarizing the text = to PROSCRIBE). This is the biggest pitfall of the commentary exercise. It is heavily sanctioned.
- Don't try to comment on everything, every sentence, every word. Select representative elements and deepen the analysis of these representative elements by highlighting your personal reading, your analysis of this passage.
- Make sure that you read yourself again: use simple, clear sentences. Check that the verb is conjugated with the right grammatical person, that the adjectives and adverbs are invariable, that the personal pronouns are the right person, especially possessive pronouns (his, her, etc.). That the relative pronouns are correct. These are the most common (serious) errors