How To Use AI for the Ancient Art of Close Reading

The Ancient Art of Close Reading Close reading is a technique for careful analysis of a piece of writing, paying close attention to the exact language, structure, and content of the text. As Eric Ries described it,“close reading is one of our civilization’s oldest and most powerful technologies for trying to communicate the gestalt of a thing, the overall holistic understanding of it more than just what can be communicated in language because language is so limited.” It was (and in some cases still is) practiced by many ancient cultures and major religions. Some scholars describe close reading as “‘reading out of’ a text rather than ‘reading into’ it”, referring to the importance of making outward connections to broader context. LLMs can provide a useful tool for identifying these outward connections. It might come as a surprise that a technique…