How to Read Literature Like a
Professor
by Thomas C. Foster
A Lively and Entertaining Guide
to Reading Between the Lines
Review Chapters
6,7,8,&9
Chapter 6
“When in Doubt, It’s from
Shakespeare”
• “You know what’s
great about reading
old Will? You keep
stumbling across
lines you’ve been
hearing and
• To be or not to
reading all your
be, that is the
life.” (40)
question
Chapter 6
“When in Doubt, It’s from
Shakespeare”
• To thine own self be true
• All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and
women merely players
• What’s in a name? That which we call a rose /
By any other name would smell as sweet
• Double, double, toil and trouble; / Fire burn and
cauldron bubble
Chapter 6
“When in Doubt, It’s from
Shakespeare”
• Using ideas from
Shakespeare’s literature
allows instant recognition
for the reader
• You may not have
read all of his
plays, but you can
recognize a
Shakespeare line a
MILE away…
Chapter 7
“…Or the Bible”
Garden
Milk
and
honey
Serpent
Fatted
calves
Plagues
Slavery
and
escape
Flood
?
Parting
of
waters
Denial
Loaves
Betrayal
40 days
Fishes
Chapter 7
“…Or the Bible”
• “The devil, as the
old saying goes,
can quote
Scripture.” (48)
• “So can writers.”
(48)
Chapter 7
“…Or the Bible”
• Resonance Test…what it is?
• “If I hear something going on in a text that
seems to be beyond the scope of the story’s or
poem’s immediate dimensions, if it resonates
outside itself, I start looking for allusions to
older and bigger texts.” (54)
•
•
•
•
•
Titles
Situations
Poetry
Names
Quotations from Scripture
Chapter 7
“…Or the Bible”
• A 20th century story that is rich with
allusions “resonates with the richness of
distant antecedents, with the power of
accumulated myth…it becomes timeless
and archetypal, speaking of the tensions
and difficulties that exist always and
everywhere…that story never grows old.”
(56)
Chapter 8
“Hanseldee and Greteldum”
“The ‘literary canon’…is a master list of
works that everyone pretends doesn’t
exist…but we all know [that it] matters in
some important way.” (58)
Chapter 8
“Hanseldee and Greteldum”
“Kiddie lit” is the common body of
knowledge that writers use for the modern
audience for
• parallels,
• analogies,
• plot structures,
• references.
Chapter 8
“Hanseldee and Greteldum”
• Snow White
• Sleeping Beauty
• Hansel and Gretel
• Little Red Riding Hood
• Rapunzel
Writers are not retelling these tales – they are just
adding “depth and texture” to their own stories
using the “readers’ deeply ingrained knowledge
of fairy tales.” (62)
Chapter 8
“Hanseldee and Greteldum”
Irony
drives
a
great
deal
of
fiction.
Chapter 9
“It’s Greek to Me”
MYTH
“…the northern shores of the
Mediterranean between two and three
thousand years ago…Greece and
Rome.” (66)
Chapter 9
“It’s Greek to Me”
• Troy
• Athens
• Ithaca
• Icarus and
Daedalus
• The Odyssey
• The Iliad
• Aeneas
• Metamorphoses
Assignment –
Choose a common mythological or
fairy tale that is embedded within your
summer reading novel. Explain the
commonalities between the novel and
the original tale. (“T” chart or Venn
diagram is appropriate for this
assignment, but be specific and offer
details!
Minimal effort=minimal grade)