How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Page 30
S
The Sacred Fount (James), 20
Saint, Eva Marie, 138
Samson Agonistes (Milton), 51
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 101
The Satanic Verses (Rushdie), 52-53, 95, 96, 131, 132, 244
Schulz, Charles, 74
seasons of the year, 175-84
Seger, Bob, 178
“Sestina:Altaforte” (Pound), 23
Seuss, Dr., 59
A Severed Head (Murdoch), 21
sex, 9, 17, 135-42, 143-51
p. 312 Shakespeare, William
and baptism/rebirth, 159-60
borrowing from, 35-36, 37-46, 63
and disease, 208
and fairy/folk tales, 62
and flights of fancy, 134
and heart, 208
and intentionality, 84
and literary canon, 58
as mythology, 64-65
and one story, 33, 35-36, 186, 187
and perspective/viewpoint, 232-33
and physical deformities, 193, 194
and seasons, 175-77, 181, 182, 184
sonnets of, 24
and symbolism, 280
and viewpoint, 232-33
and violence, 88, 89, 96
See also specific work
Shane (film), 190
Shaw, George Bernard, 110
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (film), 190
Shelley, Mary, 193, 198-200
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 86, 153, 218
Shikibu, Murasaki, 186
Silko, Leslie Marmon, 65, 66
Silvers, Phil, 39
Simon & Garfunkel, 178
The Simpsons (TV program), 32
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (poem), 4, 51
“The Sisters” (Joyce), 213, 214
Sitwell, Edith, 58
“Sleeping Beauty” (fairy tale), 59
Smiley, Jane, 39
Smith, Stevie, 58
“The Snow Man” (Stevens), 80
“Snow White” (fairy tale), 59, 63
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (Hemingway), 173-74
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury), 39
Song of Solomon (Morrison), 53-54, 65-67, 77, 127-28, 129, 157-58, 167-68, 195
sonnets, 22-27
“Sonny’s Blues” (Baldwin), 54, 55, 56, 227-28, 229-31
Sontag, Susan, 218
Sophocles, 5, 72, 115-16, 195-96, 202, 203, 206, 208, 219
The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner), 39
Spenser, Edmund, 4, 51
Spielberg, Steven, 128, 205
St. Paul, 180
Star Trek (TV program), 199
Star Wars (film), 6
Steinbeck, John, 47-48, 50
Stevens, Wallace, 80, 188
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 17, 59, 188, 200, 218
p. 313 Stewart, Rod, 184
Stoker, Bram, 15-16, 17
Stoppard, Tom, 39
The Story of O (Reage), 32
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 218
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson), 17
The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), 51, 196-98
Swift, Jonathan, 51
symbolic meaning, 88, 97-107
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y
T
The Tale of Genji (Shikibu), 186
The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare), 37-38
Tarantino, Quentin, 47
Taylor, Edward, 51
Tchaikovsky, Pietr, 39
Tempest (film), 38
The Tempest (Shakespeare), 38
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 188
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Hardy), 20
test case, 245-77
Thelma and Louise (film), 235
Thomas, Dylan, 182
Thoreau, Henry David, 218
Thorogood, George, 138
A Thousand Acres (Smiley), 39
The Thousand and One Nights (fairy/folktale), 32
“The Three Strangers” (Hardy), 76
To the Lighthouse (Woolf), 90
Tolkien, J. R., 6, 32, 96, 191
Tolstoy, Leo, 89, 161
Tom Jones (Fielding), 9
Tom Jones (film), 9
Tongues of Flame (Parks), 50
Treasure Island (Stevenson), 59
Trevor, William, 33
The Turn of the Screw (James), 18, 20
Twain, Mark
and baptism/rebirth, 153
and geography, 164-65, 166
and irony, 235
and one story, 32, 189
and physical deformities, 200
and quests, 6
and symbolism, 103-5
and violence, 96
Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 177
“Two Gallants” (Joyce), 33
“Two More Gallants” (Trevor), 33
Tyler, Anne, 12
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y
U
Ulysses (Joyce), 71-72, 83, 145, 159-60, 215, 270
“Ulysses, Order, and Myth” (Eliot), 83
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 218
The Unicorn (Murdoch), 21, 161, 241-42
Updike, John, 161
V
vampires, 15-21
Verlaine, Paul, 188
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (Márquez), 130-31
p. 314 Victorian literature, 17-20
See also specific author
viewpoint, 226-34
violence, 87-96
Virgil, 70-71, 275
The Virgin and the Gypsy (Lawrence), 75
Vizenor, Gerald, 65
Vonnegut, Kurt, 216
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y
W
Wagner, Richard, 65, 66
Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 205-6, 236, 239
“The Waking” (Roethke), 23
Walcott, Derek, 69, 71, 72, 73
The Waste Land (Eliot), 52, 78-79, 83, 104-5, 196
weather, 74-81
Weldon, Fay, 95-96, 131, 132
Welty, Eudora, 53
The Wench Is Dead (Dexter), 209
West Side Story (musical/film), 38-39
Weston, Jessie L., 79, 136, 139
Whitelaw, Billie, 235-36
Whitman, Walt, 111
“Why I Live at the P.O.” (Welty), 53
“The Wild Swans at Coole” (Yeats), 133
Wilde, Oscar, 200, 240
Williams, Hank, 138
Williams, William Carlos, 67-68
Wilson, August, 43
The Wind in the Willows (Grahame), 59
The Wings of the Dove (James), 218
A Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare), 177
Wise Children (Carter), 35-36, 39-40, 149-50
Wolfe, Thomas, 187, 218
The Woman Who Rode Away (Lawrence), 170
Women in Love (film), 139-40
Women in Love (Lawrence), 21, 91-92, 93, 111, 139-40, 174, 218, 265
Woolf, Virginia, 58, 83, 89, 90, 116, 153, 223, 224, 241
Wordsworth, William, 172
Y
Yeats, William Butler, 133, 178-79
“Yellow Woman” (Silko), 65
“Yom Kippur, 1984” (Rich), 52
Publication Information
About How to Read Literature Like a Professor
“A smart, accessible, and thoroughly satisfying examination of what it means to read a work of literature. Guess what? It isn’t all that hard when you have a knowledgeable guide to show you the way. Dante had his Virgil; for everyone else, there is Thomas Foster.”
—Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of Patience & Fortitude
What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey? Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface—a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character—and there’s that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary t
ext keeps escaping you.
In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.
“Tom Foster’s casual, unpretentious, yet brilliant How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a painless introduction to crucial—and sophisticated—skills of reading. What a knowledge of modern literature! What good stories!”
—Linda Wagner-Martin,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
author of Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life
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Praise for How to Read Literature Like a Professor
by Thomas C. Foster
“I know of no other book that so vividly conveys what it’s like to study with a great literature professor. In a work that is both down-to-earth and rich in insight, Thomas Foster goes far toward breaking down the wall that has long divided the academic and the common reader.”
—-James Shapiro, Columbia University,
author of Shakespeare and the Jews
“By bringing his eminent scholarship to bear in doses measured for the common reader or occasional student, Professor Foster has done us all a generous turn. The trained eye, the tuned ear, the intellect possessed of simple ciphers bring the literary arts alive. For those who’ve ever wondered what Dr. Williams saw in ‘a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water’—here is an essential text.”
—Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
A Broad Overview of Literature
• A lively and entertaining guide to making your reading experience more rewarding and fun.
• Focuses on literary basics: major themes and motifs (seasons, quests, food, politics, geography, weather, vampires, violence, illness, and many more); literary models (Shakespeare’s plays, Greek mythology, fairy tales, the Bible); and narrative devices (form, irony, plot, and symbol, among others).
• Draws on a huge variety of examples from all genres: novels, short stories, plays, poems, movies, song lyrics, and cartoons.
• Encourages readers to test their knowledge on the short story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield, offering comments and ideas along the way.
Based on Twenty-five Years of Experience and Expertise
• Thomas C. Foster has been teaching students how to read literature for more than twenty-five years.
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor approaches the often intimidating domain of literature in accessible and non-academic prose. It is not a textbook but an engaging companion for readers to discover the possibilities of modern and classic literature.
The Perfect Resource for Reading Groups
• With its informal style and easy approach to literature, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a useful and practical tool for reading groups and book clubs.
Suggests Further Reading Material
• Includes a comprehensive list of novels, poems, and plays that readers may find enjoyable and challenging.
• Offers suggestions for secondary sources on reading, interpretation, and criticism.
About the Author
THOMAS C. FOSTER is a professor of English at the University of Michigan at Flint, where he teaches classic and contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry, as well as creative writing and composition. He is the author of several books on twentieth-century British and Irish fiction and poetry. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.
Copyright Notice
The excerpts from James Joyce’s “The Dead” are reprinted from Dubliners, The Modern Library, 1969.
Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” is reprinted from The Garden Party and Other Stories, Alfred A. Knopf, 1922.
The excerpt from Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” is reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
The excerpt from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.
HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE A PROFESSOR. Copyright © 2003 by Thomas C. Foster. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
FIRST EDITION
Designed by Sarah Maya Gubkin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foster, Thomas C.
How to read literature like a professor : a lively and entertaining guide to reading between the lines / Thomas C. Foster.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-06-000942-X
1. Literature—Explication. 2. Books and reading. 3. Criticism. 4. Literature—History and criticism. I. Title.
PN45.F585 2003
808—dc21
2002031783
04 05 06 07 10 9 8
eBook Version Notes
v1.0 July 2005 – Desktop & PocketPC .lit
Scan, conversion, and proofing.