How to Read Literature Like a Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061804061
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
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 text 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.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061804061
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book

Book Description
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 text 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.

How to Read Literature

How to Read Literature PDF Author: Terry Eagleton
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190964
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
DIV A literary master’s entertaining guide to reading with deeper insight, better understanding, and greater pleasure /div

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: Harper
ISBN: 9780062696854
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
The classic guide, now available in a hardcover edition—a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable. While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes—and the literary codesof the ultimate professional reader, the college professor. What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he's drenched in a sudden rain shower? Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature—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 a shower—and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun. This revised edition includes new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, and incorporates updated teaching points that Foster has developed over the past decade.

Shakespeare's Royal Self

Shakespeare's Royal Self PDF Author: James Kirsch
Publisher: Daimon
ISBN: 9783856306113
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The discovery of the unconscious has brought a new dimension to the criticism of great works of literature. Notable studies of Hamlet by depth psychologists are in existence.

How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book PDF Author: Mortimer J. Adler
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476790159
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Investigates the art of reading by examining each aspect of reading, problems encountered, and tells how to combat them.

The Symbolic Quest

The Symbolic Quest PDF Author: Edward C. Whitmont
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213186
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This book explores the use and development of man's symbolizing capacities-those qualities that make him distinctly human. Dr. Whitmont describes the symbolic approach to a dream, which takes into account a symptom's meaning in reference to an unfolding wholeness of personality. He then presents the view that the instinctual urge for meaning is served by the symbolizing capacities, and that this urge has been repressed in our time. In the field of psychology, this symbolic approach is most fully exemplified by the theories of C. G. Jung. The author's contribution includes many differentiations and speculations, especially concerning the problems of relatedness.

How to Read Novels Like a Professor

How to Read Novels Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN: 9780061340406
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history. Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor—now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Exploring how authors' choices about structure—point of view, narrative voice, first page, chapter construction, character emblems, and narrative (dis)continuity—create meaning and a special literary language, How to Read Novels Like a Professor shares the keys to this language with readers who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

How to Read Poetry Like a Professor

How to Read Poetry Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006268406X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes this essential primer to reading poetry like a professor that unlocks the keys to enjoying works from Lord Byron to the Beatles. No literary form is as admired and feared as poetry. Admired for its lengthy pedigree—a line of poets extending back to a time before recorded history—and a ubiquitous presence in virtually all cultures, poetry is also revered for its great beauty and the powerful emotions it evokes. But the form has also instilled trepidation in its many admirers mainly because of a lack of familiarity and knowledge. Poetry demands more from readers—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually—than other literary forms. Most of us started out loving poetry because it filled our beloved children's books from Dr. Seuss to Robert Louis Stevenson. Eventually, our reading shifted to prose and later when we encountered poetry again, we had no recent experience to make it feel familiar. But reading poetry doesn’t need to be so overwhelming. In an entertaining and engaging voice, Thomas C. Foster shows readers how to overcome their fear of poetry and learn to enjoy it once more. From classic poets such as Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to later poets such as E.E. Cummings, Billy Collins, and Seamus Heaney, How to Read Poetry Like a Professor examines a wide array of poems and teaches readers: How to read a poem to understand its primary meaning. The different technical elements of poetry such as meter, diction, rhyme, line structures, length, order, regularity, and how to learn to see these elements as allies rather than adversaries. How to listen for a poem’s secondary meaning by paying attention to the echoes that the language of poetry summons up. How to hear the music in poems—and the poetry in songs! With How to Read Poetry Like a Professor, readers can rediscover poetry and reap its many rewards.

How Should One Read a Book

How Should One Read a Book PDF Author: Virginia Woolf
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN: 8728206487
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Virginia Woolf dreamed of the Day of Judgment. The "great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen" come to receive their rewards - crowns, laurels, names carved on marble. But, when he sees people coming with books under their arms, God turns to Peter and says: "Look, those need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. "They have loved reading." And this is the essence of her essay - sheer love for the written word: a joy in exploring the thoughts and imaginings of the author. If you sometimes get bogged down in a book, Woolf has produced the perfect self-help manual and motivational guide to reading. If you enjoyed 'How Should One Read a Book?', try 'How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading', by Mortimer J Adler. "To read a novel is a difficult and complex art," says Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) made an impact during her life, but her fame grew in the decades after her death. The English writer helped launch the use of stream-of-consciousness in literature and was a pioneer of 20th century modernism. Arguably her greatest legacy, though, comes from how her writing helped to inspire the feminist movements of the second half of the 20th century. Along with members of her family and other authors, Woolf helped found the Bloomsbury Group. After she married the political theorist and author Leonard Woolf in 1912, they went on the found the Hogarth Press. Virginia also had a long relationship with the writer Vita Sackville-West. The affair featured in the 2018 movie Vita and Virginia', starring Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki, He best-known works include the novels 'Mrs Dalloway', 'To the Lighthouse' and 'Orlando'.

How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor

How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor PDF Author: Thomas C. Foster
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062895885
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor uses the same skills to teach how to access accurate information in a rapidly changing 24/7 news cycle and become better readers, thinkers, and consumers of media. We live in an information age, but it is increasingly difficult to know which information to trust. Fake news is rampant in mass media, stoked by foreign powers wishing to disrupt a democratic society. We need to be more perceptive, more critical, and more judicious readers. The future of our republic may depend on it. How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor is more careful, more attentive, more aware reading. On bookstore shelves, one book looks as authoritative as the next. Online, posts and memes don’t announce their relative veracity. It is up to readers to establish how accurate, how thorough, how fair material may be. After laying out general principles of reading nonfiction, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor offers advice for specific reading strategies in various genres from histories and biographies to science and technology to social media. Throughout, the emphasis will be on understanding writers’ biases, interrogating claims, analyzing arguments, remaining wary of broad assertions and easy answers, and thinking critically about the written and spoken materials readers encounter. We can become better citizens through better reading, and the time for that is now.