how to read like a literature professor

54
How to Read Like a Literature Professor ( hope you read your 9 th grade literature)

Upload: maia

Post on 23-Feb-2016

122 views

Category:

Documents


2 download

DESCRIPTION

How to Read Like a Literature Professor. ( hope you read your 9 th grade literature ). 1. The Quest. A quest consists of : a knight - A quester a dangerous road – a place to go A Holy Grail – a stated reason to go there at least one dragon- challenges and trials en route - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

How to Read Like a Literature Professor

( hope you read your 9th grade literature)

Page 2: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

1. The Quest• A quest consists of :• a knight- A quester• a dangerous road – a place

to go• A Holy Grail – a stated

reason to go there• at least one dragon-

challenges and trials en route

• one evil knight- challenges and trials

• one princess- real reason to go there

Page 3: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

1. Every Trip is a quest • the individual doesn’t

necessarily know he’s on a quest• he goes somewhere and does

something• the real reason for the quest

never involves the stated reason• The quest is educational • The real reason for a quest

is always self knowledge!!!!!!!!

Page 4: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

2. Acts of Communion– Whenever people eat or

drink together, it’s communion.

– nearly every religion has some liturgical or social ritual involving the coming together of the faithful to share sustenance

– not all communions are holy, some are just the opposite

– In the real world, the breaking of bread is an act of sharing and peace. If you’re breaking bread- you’re not breaking heads.

Page 5: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

2. Acts of Communion– generally, eating with

another is a way of saying, “I’m with you, I like you, we form a community together”

– In literature- writing a meal scene is so difficult that the author needs a really compelling reason to do it.

– He does it to show whether the characters get along or NOT.

– a failed meal is a bad sign

Page 6: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

3. Acts of Vampires– Vampirism isn’t about vampires– It’s about selfishness, exploitation,

refusal to respect the autonomy of other people, and sex/sexuality

– Victorian’s could not write about sex and sexuality, so they found ways of transforming these taboo subjects and issues into other forms. (The Victorians were masters of sublimation)

– Writers still use ghosts, vampires, werewolves and other scary things to symbolize aspects of our more common reality.

– Ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires

– Ghosts and vampires do not necessarily look like ghosts and vampires.

Page 7: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

3. Acts of Vampires• an older figure representing

corrupt, outworn values; a young, usually virginal female; a stripping away of her youth, energy, vitality; a continuance of a the life force of the old male; the death or destruction of a young woman.

• the cannibal, vampire, succubus, spook etc is seen where someone grows in strength by weakening someone else.

• Bottom line: vampires are those who grow in strength by weakening others.

• Use adjective form! Vampiristic

Page 8: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

4. If it’s square, it’s a sonnet

no other poem is so versatile, so ubiquitous, so various, so perfectly short as a sonnet

the miracle of the sonnet is that it is 14 lines long and almost always written in iambic pentameter

A Shakespearean sonnet tends to divide up this way.

first 4 lines (quatrain,)• second 4 lines ( quatrain)• third 4 lines ( quatrain)• last 2 lines (couplet)• The groups have meaning. • Form matters. Pay attention. • sonnets are short poems that take far

more time to write, because everything has to be perfect

Page 9: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

5. De ja vu • Recognizing a pattern in literature,

movies etc• This takes a whole lot of it is

practice.• If you read enough and give what

you read thought, you begin to see patterns, archetypes, and recurrences.

• There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature

• The dialog between old texts and new texts is always going on at one level or another.

• Critics speak of this dialog as intertextuality

Page 10: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

5. De ja vu • Recognizing the allusions,

references, parallels , & analogies, will increase your understanding of the novel

• It will becomes more meaningful and complex

• all literature grows out of other literature

• Beginner readers (YOU) are disadvantaged because you have not read enough/learned enough

• I’ll point you in the right direction & give you the skills but will NOT GIVE YOU THE ANSWER

Page 11: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

6. When in doubt…it’s from Shakespeare

• You would be amazed at the dominance of the Bard. He is everywhere.

• In Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations Shakespeare takes up 47 pages

• Why quote the Bard?• you sound smarter• you sound well educated• provides a kind of authority

• Shakespeare is sacred- because there is beauty and truth in his words, scenes and lines.

• “No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.”

Page 12: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

7…or maybe the Bible

• gardens, serpents, plagues, flood, parting of waters, loaves, fish, 40 days, betrayal, denial, slavery and escape, fatted calves, milk and honey, etc

• The devil can quote scripture- so can writers.

• Even those who aren’t religious or who don’t live within the Judeo-Christian tradition may work something in from Job or Matthew or Psalms.

• Every story about the loss of innocence is really about someone’s private reenactment of the fall from grace, since we experience it no collectively but individually and subjectively

Page 13: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

7…or maybe the Bible

• Loss of innocence stories hit hard because they are so final. There’s no going back.

• If there is a biblical title- it’s important

• Poetry is full of obvious scripture

• Early English literature is frequently about and informed by religion

• Other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam etc are also used in literature.

Page 14: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

7…or maybe the Bible

• In modern literature, many Christ figures do not act very Christ like.

• If a character/place has a biblical name – there’s a reason.

• Why so many biblical allusions?

• Most of the great tribulations to which human beings are subject are detailed in Scripture

Page 15: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

8. Hanseldee & Greteldum

• Writers like to borrow from other traditional works.

• Who does everyone know? Children literature and Fairy tales

• there is a lack of ambiguity in them

• the one with the most drawing power is “Hansel and Gretel”

Page 16: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

8. Hanseldee & Greteldum• elements of H and G• sense of lostness• children ( not always) far from

home• crisis not of their making• temptation• having to fend for themselves• some fairytales are turned up

side down• whole story isn’t always used,

the details and patterns are what trigger your memories/reactions

• plan on irony

Page 17: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

9. It’s Greek to me• So far...3 myths; Shakespearean,

biblical, folk/fairy tale.• Biblical myth covers the greatest

range of human situations. • Myth in general is a story to explain

ourselves in ways that physics, philosophy, mathematics, and chemistry can’t.

• Myth is a body of story that matters• Greek mythological characters are

not stiff and artificial . • They are not saints. They make

mistakes. They are petty, envious, lustful, greedy, courageous, elegant, powerful, knowledgeable, profound.

Page 18: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

9. It’s Greek to me

• Ex. In The Iliad, it’s the story of a man who goes berserk because his stolen war bride is confiscated, acted out against a background of wholesale slaughter, the whole of which is taking place because another man, Menelaus, has had his wife stolen by Paris.

• Petty? You bet. Noble? • Yet the story epitomizes

heroism, loyalty, sacrifice and loss.

Page 19: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

9. It’s all Greek to me• The 4 great struggles of the Homer

novels• The need to protect one’s family

(Hector)• The need to maintain ones’ dignity

( Achilles)• The determination to remain

faithful and have faith (Penelope)• The struggle to return home

(Odysseus) There is no form of dysfunctional

family or no personal disintegration of character for which there is NOT a Greek or

Roman model

Page 20: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

10. It’s more than just rain or snow

1. It’s never just rain. It is symbolic of something.• (Drowning is one of our

deepest fears, so rain prompts ancestral memories of the most profound sort)

2. It’s a plot devise.

Page 21: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

10. It’s more than just rain or snow

• if you want a character to be cleansed, symbolically, let him walk through rain to get somewhere.

• If he falls down, he’ll be covered in mud and therefore more stained than before

• Rain can be restorative• Rain can act as the agent of a

new life• Rain is the principal element of

Spring. Spring is symbolic• Rain mixes with sun to create

rainbows. God promised Noah with the rainbow never again to flood the whole earth

Page 22: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

10. It’s more than just rain or snow

• fog almost always signals some sort of confusion

• authors use fog to suggest that people can’t see clearly ( philosophically or emotionally)

Page 23: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

11. It’s more than just violence

• Real violence is one of the most personal and intimate acts between human beings, but it can be cultural and societal in its implications.

• In literature it can be symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, Romanic, allegorical, transcendent

Page 24: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

11. It’s more than just violence

• Violence in literature is usually also something else. A punch in the nose may be a metaphor.

• Violence is everywhere in literature.

• It’s impossible to generalize about the meaning violence

Page 25: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

11. It’s more than just violence

• Ask the following questions

• What does this represent thematically?

• What famous or mythic death does this resemble?

• Why this particular violence and not another?

Page 26: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

12. Is that a symbol?Yes it is!!!• The problem with

symbols? • Symbols generally cannot

be reduced to standing for just one thing.

• if a symbol can stand for one thing is not a symbol- it’s an metaphor

• Symbols are not reducible to a single meaning

Page 27: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

12. Is that a symbol?• Symbols are not reducible to a

single statement, but involve a range of possible meanings and interpretations.

• Why?• we each bring our individual

history to our reading ( like education, gender, race, class, faith, social involvement)

• symbols are not necessarily objects or images, they can be actions

• the more you exercise symbolic imagination, the better and quicker it works

Page 28: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

13. It’s all political• Political writing does not age well• but it engages in the reality of its

world.

• nearly all writing is political on some level

• the political reality of the time deals with issues like

• power structures• relations between classes• issues of justice and social rights• interactions between sexes • interactions between various

racial , social , and ethnic groups • knowing something about the social

and political milieu can help you understand the work

Page 29: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

14. Yes, She’s a Christ figure too

• Culture is so influenced by its dominant religious systems that they naturally inform the literary work.

• religion can show up in the form of allusions

• Knowing other religions will help you appreciate other religious allusions/ references of other authors.

Page 30: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

14. Yes, She’s a Christ figure too

• You might be a Christ figure if:• crucified; agony; self

sacrificing; good with children; good with loaves, fish, water wine; 33 yrs of age when last seen; employed as carpenter; portrayed with arms outstretched; spends time alone in wilderness; had confrontation with Satan; creator of aphorisms and parables; buried, but came back on 3rd day; had 12 disciples; very forgiving; came to redeem an unworthy world

Page 31: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

14. Yes, She’s a Christ figure too

• Religious knowledge is helpful to read analytically, but if held to tightly can be a problem.

• no literary figure is as perfect as Christ

• the author is making a point

Page 32: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

15. Flying

• in general, flying is freedom; freedom not only from specific circumstances but from those more general burdens that tie us down

• flight is freedom• falling from vast heights and

surviving is miraculous and symbolically meaningful as the act of flight itself

• the notion that the disembodied soul is capable of flight is deeply imbedded in Christian tradition

Page 33: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

The next one is the one you

have all been waiting for…

Page 34: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

16. It’s all about sex…….except… • sex doesn’t have to look

like sex. • other objects and activities

can be symbolic of sex• why?• it’s encoded for younger

audiences ( in Victorian novels)

• Sometimes it’s encoded rather than explicit because it can work at multiple levels and be more intense than the literal depictions.

• these levels protect the innocent

Page 35: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

17. Except sex ( huh??)

• Usually when writers are writing about sex, they are really writing about something else.

• When writers are writing

about other things, they really mean sex,

• and when they are writing about sex they really mean other things.

Huh?

Page 36: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

17. Except sex ( huh??)

• if you write about sex

for sex, its called pornography

• ( we DO NOT READ this)

Page 37: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

17. Except sex ( huh??)• What would they be

writing about?

• pleasure• sacrifice• submission• rebellion• resignation• supplication • domination• enlightenment • etc

Page 38: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

18. Baptism • Ever notice how many literary

characters get wet?• It is symbolic.• Did the character: get pushed,

pulled, dragged, tripped etc.? • Did the character: get

rescued, grab some driftwood, rise up and walk. Each would mean something different on a symbolic level

• Is he reborn? • See it in symbolic terms• Remember in baptism, you

have to be ready to receive it.

Page 39: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

18. Baptism • rebirths/baptisms have a lot of

common themes, but drowning is serving its own purpose ( character revelation, thematic development of violence or failure or guilt, plot complication or denouement ( final outcome of the main dramatic complication in literary work)

• when your character goes underwater look for the symbolism

Page 40: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

19. Geography matters

• It means something when the landscape in the novel is high, low, steep, shallow, flat ,sunken.

• Why did this character die on a mountain , and this one on the savanna?

• What’s geography? rivers, hills, buttes, steppes, glaciers, swamps, mountains, prairies, chasms, seas, islands, people

Page 41: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

19. Geography matters

• geography is setting – but it can also be psychological, attitude, finance, industry

• geography can define or even develop character

• there is rebirth when there is a renaming

• when writers send characters south- it’s so they can run amok ( wild)

• this running south is because they are having direct, raw encounters with the subconscious

Page 42: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

19. Geography matters

• geography also becomes a way which the writer can express theme

• Hills and valleys have their own logic

• low: swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life, death

• high; snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear view, isolation, life, death

Page 43: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

20. Season matters• summer is passion and love • winter is anger and hatred• seasons stand for a set of

meanings• spring- childhood and

youth• summer- adulthood,

romance, fulfillment & passion

• fall- decline, middle age, tiredness, harvest

• winter- old age, resentment death

Page 44: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

20. Season matters

• use these as guidelines• see patterns that can be straightforward, ironic or

subversive• Christian season biggies are Easter and Christmas-

which coincide with seasonal anxiety• Christmas( winter) is dismal and we wait for

spring• Easter ( spring) rebirth( resurrection) planting• Pay attention to the season

Page 45: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

21. Marked for Greatness

• characters can be as famous for their shape as for their behavior

• their shapes/marks tell us something, about themselves or other people in the story

• understand physical imperfection in symbolic terms

Page 46: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

21. Marked for Greatness

• physical imperfections can be symbolic of moral, spiritual and/or psychological dysfunctions

• character markings stand as indicators of the damage life inflicts

• physical markings by their very nature call attention to themselves and signify some psychological or thematic point the writer wants to make

Page 47: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

22. He’s blind for a reason you know • There are a lot of things

that have to happen when a writer introduces a blind character into a story, and even more so for a play

• Something important must be at stake when blindness comes up.

• The author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical

Page 48: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

22. He’s blind for a reason you know• as soon as we notice

blindness and sight as thematic components of a work, more and more related images and phrases emerge in the text

• when literal blindness, sight, darkness and light are introduced into a story, it is nearly always the case that figurative seeing and blindness are at work

Page 49: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

23. It’s never just heart disease

• In literature there is no better, no more lyrical, nor more perfectly metaphorical illness than heart disease.

• the heart is the symbolic repository ( place) of emotion

• the writer can use heart ailments as a kind of shorthand for the character, or it can be used as metaphor.

• Metaphor for what?• bad love, loneliness, cruelty,

pederasty, disloyalty, cowardice, lack of determination

Page 50: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

24. ..and rarely just illness

• Not all diseases are create equal

• it should be picturesque• it should be mysterious in

origin• it should have strong symbolic

or metaphorical possibilities • Example: Tuberculosis is a

wasting disease. So many characters contract tuberculosis either because the writer themselves had it, or many of their friends, etc

Page 51: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

24. ..and rarely just illness• Is the disease from a plague?

Divine wrath? • Example: malaria metaphorically

translates to “Bad air” ( gossip, public opinion)

• every age has its special disease.

The romantics and Victorians had consumption, we have AIDS.

• Example: Fever could represent

the randomness of fate, the unknowability of the mind of God, lack of author imagination, or anything else

Page 52: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

25. Don’t read with your eyes• we all have our own blind spots, that’s

normal • don’t take a rigid stance on the

literature• take the work as it was intended to be

taken• don’t read with your eyes- • read with your mind/soul• try to find a reading with the

historical perspective that allows for sympathy with the historical moment of the story,

• understand the text as having been written against its social, historical, cultural and the authors personal background.

• adopt the worldview that the work requests of its audience

Page 53: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

26. Irony trumps everything• in literary works we watch

characters who are our equals or even superiors, in an ironic work we watch characters struggle futilely with forces we might be able to overcome

• irony is a deflection from expectation

• most writers use irony• irony can be comic, tragic,

wry, perplexing• irony provides additional

richness to the literary work because the reader can find multiple layers and meanings

Page 54: How to Read Like a Literature Professor

Finally…………….

•Yeah

•This lecture is over