How to Read Literature like a Professor Notes
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Introduction: How’d He Do That?
Conventions in stories:
Types of characters
Plot rhythms
Chapter structures
Point-of-view limitations
Chapter 1: Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)
The reason for a quest is always self-knowledge
The stated reason is never the actual reason to go on a quest, the real reason for a quest is self-knowledge.
Most of the time, when a piece of literature involves someone going somewhere and doing something, it is a quest.
Chapter 2: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Communion
Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion
Sharing a meal is a very personal thing (you wouldn’t have a meal someone you hated).
Food is a universal thing that we as humans share.
In Cathedral a man who hated people with disabilities bonded to a man who was blind over food.
Chapter 5: Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature
All authors pull inspiration from previous works.
In Going After Cacciato, Tim O’Brien pulls inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland when he has his character saying that they have to fall up to get out, into Vietcong tunnel.
Authors also use historical inspiration.
O’Brien models the main character’s lover interest after Sacajawea (a brown-skinned young women guiding a group of mostly white men, speaking a language they don’t know, knowing where to go, where to find food, and taking them west)
There is only one story.
Chapter 9: It’s All Greek to Me
Myth is the body of story that matters
Greek and Roman myths are so ingrained into our consciousness that we don’t realize how apparent they are.
Like in William Carlos Williams painting Landscape with Fall of Icarus. Without the legs sticking out of the water in that making the painting that much less popular.
Chapter 12: Is That A Symbol
If it’s not symbolism, it’s allegory
Symbols are personal things
We want it to mean one thing, but is
Introduction: How’d He Do That?
Conventions in stories:
Types of characters
Plot rhythms
Chapter structures
Point-of-view limitations
Chapter 1: Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)
The reason for a quest is always self-knowledge
The stated reason is never the actual reason to go on a quest, the real reason for a quest is self-knowledge.
Most of the time, when a piece of literature involves someone going somewhere and doing something, it is a quest.
Chapter 2: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Communion
Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion
Sharing a meal is a very personal thing (you wouldn’t have a meal someone you hated).
Food is a universal thing that we as humans share.
In Cathedral a man who hated people with disabilities bonded to a man who was blind over food.
Chapter 5: Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature
All authors pull inspiration from previous works.
In Going After Cacciato, Tim O’Brien pulls inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland when he has his character saying that they have to fall up to get out, into Vietcong tunnel.
Authors also use historical inspiration.
O’Brien models the main character’s lover interest after Sacajawea (a brown-skinned young women guiding a group of mostly white men, speaking a language they don’t know, knowing where to go, where to find food, and taking them west)
There is only one story.
Chapter 9: It’s All Greek to Me
Myth is the body of story that matters
Greek and Roman myths are so ingrained into our consciousness that we don’t realize how apparent they are.
Like in William Carlos Williams painting Landscape with Fall of Icarus. Without the legs sticking out of the water in that making the painting that much less popular.
Chapter 12: Is That A Symbol
If it’s not symbolism, it’s allegory
Symbols are personal things
We want it to mean one thing, but is