How To Read Literature

In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster teaches readers about the most commonly used symbols and their meanings and the similarities between stories.

In Thomas Foster’s book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor,” readers learn how to look past the surface of a literary work to find a deeper or hidden meaning. Writers use devices, such as symbolism, imagery, foreshadowing, irony and allusion to reveal these meanings. If these are overlooked, important aspects of the story can be lost. One literary device that Foster emphasizes in his book is allusion. Every story has elements of another story, and Foster devotes Chapters Four through Seven explaining the meaning of allusion in works by Shakespeare, the Bible, and fairy tales.

The motivation for the quest is implicit- the stated reason for going on the journey is

In chapter fourteen of Thomas Foster’s novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, when telling of Christ in our literature, he makes the all-composing assertion that we live in an overwhelming Christian culture. The common man or woman may not know all there is to understand in Christianity, but our media and minds are affected by it considerably and basic knowledge of its core is known by the majority. The figures of Jesus in literature are abstract and in no way have to be exact to Jesus in gender, morality, or actions. No literary character or real character can be as divine or perfect as Jesus was in the Bible, making it impossible to completely replicate him. Imagination is the largest

As I was reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I was thinking about how much I have missed in the books I have read due to not knowing how to look for certain literary devices. Something as simple as not knowing how to read between the lines caused me to miss out on points the author was trying to make. Over the course of reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I have learned many ways to analyze literature that I did not know before.

In the sixth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster examines the Bible and its importance throughout stories, poetry and film. The Bible is one of the most commonly known pieces of literature and is even “nonsectarian” in Foster’s eyes (44). Because stories from the Bible are so well known, the Bible is a tremendously easy for authors to reference when constructing a new composition. Especially “prior to sometime in the middle of the twentieth century” writers were “solidly instructed in religion” and could count on the public being very well acquainted with Biblical stories (47). This widespread knowledge of the Bible lead to greater understandings throughout literature, and the recognized allusions helped

How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.

Foster discusses the idea that when two characters eat together, that moment acts as a bonding experience and causes the characters to come together. I had never noticed the significance of a meal between characters before. After reading this chapter, I can think of so many moments in stories when the characters share a meal together to form friendships or come to a peace. In one of my favorite novels, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, Picoult writes that “Emma Alexis- who was one of the cool, beautiful girls…she rolled her wheelchair right beside Justin. She’d asked him if she could have half of his donut” (367). Splitting the donut between one of the popular girls and one of the quieter, nerdier boys was a representation of the deformation of the high school social classes. After reading this chapter, I could recall the significance of meals together in so many novels and movies but I never noticed this pattern before.

In the book “How To Read Literature Like A Professor” by Thomas C. Foster, many elements are brought to the reader’s attention. Three of these elements, happen to connect with the novel, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time” written by Mark Haddon.

Intertextuality is the ongoing interaction between poems or stories. Romeo and Juliet, and the Titanic are two examples

The recognition of patterns makes it much easier to read complicated literature because recognizing patterns will help you relate two or more pieces of literature together, therefore making it easier to understand and analyze the literature you are focused on. Patterns in literature can help the reader understand plots, settings, themes, and other literary elements. I greatly appreciated the novel, Brave New World because of how different the society in the novel was from the one I live in. Using the Signposts from Notice and Note, I was able to see contrast and contradictions that enhanced my understanding of the book. I noticed how I was expecting Bernard, in Brave New World to be just like everybody else in the novel but instead he was a “normal person” that felt normal human emotions, such as the longing for love, that the other characters just did not feel. He also felt isolated and alone. Bernard thinks in a way we were not expecting. Patterns such as this helped me, the reader, to better understand literary elements.

-Flight is freedom. When a character has the ability to fly they are free from the burdens of everyday life.

This essay will be about the analyzing of literary devices that are discussed in this book. The professor in the book thoroughly describes these devices and the allusions and symbols that are involved in literature over the centuries. I will be discussing the specifics of the allusions and symbols of the bible and the Christ like figures in literature.

Patterns are everywhere. A pattern is a "repeated decorative design." Whether in a constructed environment or a natural environment, patterns are made and set into stone with an intended idea or form and are repeated. As Thomas Foster shows us in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, there are patterns in Literature. In The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson, we are shown how the different patterns explained by Foster are put into place to form the story. Johnson uses the same techniques Foster presents in How to Read Literature Like a Professor.

A book is like a puzzle, it contains many different pieces to make it into a whole. Thomas Foster, in his book “How to Read Literature Like a Professor, discusses the many aspects to decoding a book. There are many aspects included in the book, including the importance of weather and Foster incorporated lots of content in his book, but the two that stand out are irony and symbolism.