Dealing mainly with the works of William Shakespeare, the essays in Close Readings without Readings reflect Stephen Booth's lifelong interest in uncovering the ways great literature works upon readers. As the book's title suggests, the author does not aim to create new or novel interpretations or to uncover the political agendas of literary works, but to notice language patterns--repetitions, analogies, correspondences, echoes, overtones--and other ways in which the choice and the arrangement of words affect readers. For Booth, close reading is a practice of attentiveness. He notices how,...