How to Read Literature Like a Professor Themes

Thomas C. Foster

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster’s classic guide—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.

Literary criticism

1-Sentence-Summary: How To Read Literature Like A Professor shows you how to get more out of your reading, by educating you about the basics of classic literature and how authors use patterns, themes, memory and symbolism in their work to deliver their message to you.

1. Surface Reading vs. Deeper Reading.
2. Symbol and Metaphor. Of all the literary devices examined within the book, symbol and metaphor are arguably the most important.
3. Archetype and Pattern Recognition.
4. Intertextuality.
5. Literature, Life, and Society.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a New York Times bestseller by Thomas C. Foster that was published in 2003. The author suggests interpretations of themes, concepts, and symbols commonly found in literature.

General Guidelines

1. read fiction/literature (poetry and drama) more than once.
2. read for the total experience of the work.
3. read slowly for the words, feelings, emotions, ideas.
4. underline key words, phrases, and passages.
5. take notes on responses, ideas, and questions that occur to you.
6. look up important words in the dictionary.

Every Trip Is A Quest Analysis According to Thomas C. Every quest is educational, in which the quester gains self-knowledge. The stated reason for a quest is almost never the real reason for the quester to embark on his/her journey.

The quest consists of five things: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d) challenges and trials en route, and (e) a real reason to go there. Item (a) is easy; a quester is just a person who goes on a quest, whether or not he knows it’s a quest.

The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge. That’s why questers are so often young, inexperienced, immature, sheltered.

The real reason for the quest is when the character realizes the real reason they did what they did and it wasn’t why they thought. It’s always self knowledge and never involves the stated reason.

A quest narrative is one of the oldest and surest ways of telling a story. The description of the goal for the quest encourages a sense of seeking, questioning and curiosity, propelling readers forward into the narrative. It gives a structure and suspense to a piece that might otherwise be flat and static.

Plot Summary (3) Dorothy Gale is swept away from her home in Kansas to the magical Land of Oz in a tornado and embarks on a quest with her new friends to see the Wizard who can help her return home and help her friends as well.

A quest is an adventurous journey undergone by the main character or protagonist of a story. The protagonist usually meets with and overcomes a series of obstacles, returning in the end with the benefits of knowledge and experience from his quest.

Perhaps the most famous quest is the search for the Holy Grail from the legend of King Arthur. A more modern example of a quest can be found in the books — and spectacular movies made based upon — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Product description. Oculus Quest 2 is our most advanced all-in-one VR system yet. You can even connect your VR headset to a gaming-compatible computer with an Oculus Link cable to access hundreds of PC VR games and experiences.

The hero normally aims to obtain something or someone by the quest, and with this object to return home. The object can be something new, that fulfills a lack in his life, or something that was stolen away from him or someone with authority to dispatch him.

12. Return With The Elixir. This is the final stage of the Hero’s journey in which he returns home to his Ordinary World a changed man.

They are punished for initially refusing the adventure. and receive help. They must accept the adventure to save someone. they care for.

three major phases: departure, initiation, and return. Within this three stages there are several sub-stages.

Follow Bilbo along on each of the 12 steps of his journey — as you go through, plot your own character’s journey through the: Ordinary World, Call of Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting the Mentor, Crossing the First Threshold, Tests, Allies, Enemies, Approach to the Inmost Cave, Ordeal, Reward (Seizing the Sword).

Being your own hero means showing yourself real love by developing your own values and staying true to any commitments you’ve made to yourself. Do what you say you’re going to do and feel proud of yourself, confident in your character. In the end, heroes are all about intention, consistency and compassion.

Campbell’s concept of monomyth (one myth) refers to the theory that sees all mythic narratives as variations of a single great story. The theory is based on the observation that a common pattern exists beneath the narrative elements of most great myths, regardless of their origin or time of creation.

Legends are simpler than folk tales and more regional in nature. A monomyth is a universal myth that speaks to all humankind. The hero’s quest is lateral, and he often ends up far from where he began once the quest is complete.

Joseph Campbell

Myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. It is distinguished from symbolic behaviour (cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (temples, icons).