HOW TO READ LITERATURE LIKE A PROFESSOR Main Points by AP Lit Class The three items that separate a professorial reader from other readers are memory, symbols, and pattern.

NICE TO EAT WITH YOU ACTS OF COMMUNION Communion is the sharing of any meal, not exclusively about religion Communion can represent trust It can be a celebration of life or death It connects the reader to the characters Sometimes used ironically as a precursor to betrayal Since it is considered an intimate act, it can symbolize sexual desires A failed meal is also significant in the story plot

NICE TO EAT YOU ACTS OF VAMPIRES Ghosts and Vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires Vampirism: selfishness; exploitation; a refusal to respect the autonomy of others; old worn out It almost always has to do with something beyond itself It may point out that humans have a “dark side” or a dual nature Essentials of a “vampire story” is an older figure representing corrupt, outworn values while a young preferably female is stripped away of her youth, energy, virtue, and ultimately the death and destruction of the young woman

NICE TO EAT YOU: ACTS OF VAMPIRE A literal spook can point to a sort of psychosocial imbalance or better known today as a dysfunctional aspect. It can also be employed to point out how society or a person or entity can consume a victim. Ultimately whether the figure is Elizabethan, Victorian, or more modern: it is exploitation in its many forms Using people to get what they want; placing one’s desires above the needs of others; denying someone’s right to live in the face of demands, all steal the life force of the person who matters less to the vampire.

IT’S GREEK TO ME Three Most Important “Myths” Shakespearean Biblical = Most Influential because it covers the greatest range of human experience Folk/Fairy Tale Myths is a body of story that matters. Myths here are concerned with how material functions for the literary creator and how it shapes and sustains the story. Provided they’re recognizable to the reader, they enrich and enhance the reading experience.

What is a Myth? The shaping and sustaining power of a story Point of views differ Greek & Roman Myths are: Part of the fabric of our consciousness and unconsciousness Started at different periods of time Greek tragic characters figure in Freud’s theories Four Great Struggles of Human Beings Nature Divine Ourselves Other Humans

NOW WHERE HAVE I SEEN HER BEFORE?  There is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. Stories grow out of other stories, poems, and other types of literary works, and they can cross over in genres.  Readers need to see patterns, archetypes, and reoccurrences. Situations and events should also be considered.  Lose the personal details of the characters and consider them as types.  When we read, the mind flashes bits and pieces of childhood experiences, past reading, every movie the writer/creator has seen, last week’s argument with a phone solicitor – in short, everything that may even unconsciously be in the recesses of the mind.  Writers use prior texts consciously and purposefully.

NOW, WHERE HAVE I SEEN HER BEFORE?  History is story too.  Similarities may be straight or ironic or comic or tragic. Similarities begin t reveal themselves to readers after much practice.  The “Aha Factor” – the delight we feel when we recognize a familiar component from earlier experience.  Intertextual dialog enriches the reading experience, brings multiple levels of meaning to the text, and makes the text come alive.  If the story is good and the characters work, but you don’t catch the allusions, references, and parallels, then you have done nothing worse than read a good story with memorable characters.

HANSELDEE AND GRETALDUM  If we want our reference to be timeless we borrow from classic text such as fairy tales.  Use relevant sources depending on what you want to accomplish.  Prior text adds depth and texture, brings out a theme, adds irony to a statement, and plays with a reader’s knowledge of fairy tales and children’s literature.  Irony is a side-effect that drives a great deal of literature and poetry.  We want strangeness in our stories, but we want familiarity too.

IF IT’S SQUARE, IT’S A SONNET  Sonnet is the only poetic from most readers will ever need to know and recognize.  It has been written in every era since the English Reaissance.  A sonnet is 14 lines long and almost always written in iambic pentameter. Ten syllables of English are about as long as 14 lines are in height: equaling a square.  A sonnet usually contains two units of meaning closely related, but with a shift between them.  The two parts are mostly made up of an octave or eight lines in one part and a sestet or six lines in the other.  A Petrarchan sonnet uses rhyme scheme that ties the first eight lines, followed by rhyme scheme that unifies the last six lines.  A Shakespearean sonnet tends to divides by four or quatrains and ends in a couplet or two lines. The first two groups of four or quatrains have a unity of meaning and the third quatrain and the couplet usually ties together closely also.  Form matters. It may mean something.

IT’S MORE THAN JUST RAIN OR SNOW Weather is part of the setting of a story It’s never just weather Rain prompts ancestral memories Rain is restorative and cleansing Rain mixes with the sun to create rainbows and signs of new awakenings A character’s emotional and mental state can be revealed through the setting of the story. Rough weather can signify confusion, mystery, isolation, or mental torment.

WHEN IN DOUBT IT’S FROM SHAKESPEARE... Most writers quote what they have read or heard Writers are inspired and then “rewrite” Relationships form between writers There is always intertextual dialog going on between old and new text. The dialog between old and new texts serves to deepen and enrich the reading experience.

OR THE BIBLE... Non-religious writers alike tend to incorporate biblical references in their work. An author may easily look to the Bible for titles, situations, and quotations to deepen the meaning of their work. Allusion to biblical stories, characters, and situations are very common in literature. Names of characters in a story are serious and many times referencing classic and well-known authorative works of literature.

MORE THAN IT’S GOING TO HURT YOU: CONCERNING VIOLENCE Violence in literature can be: symbolic, thematic, biblical, romantic, allegorical, transcendental, Shakespearean, or just violence. Two categories of violence: specific injury and narrative violence An accident is never just an accident You can generalize violence in literature. For example: Hamlet, “Out, Out”, The Beloved, The Outsiders, Sherlock Holms

IS THAT A SYMBOL? Almost anything analyzed properly can be a symbol. Even seemingly “clear-cut” symbols can have different understandings The difference between symbols and allegory is that allegories are explicit and always stand for something on a one-on-one basis, while symbols can have multiple interpretations.

IT’S ALL POLITICAL There are two forms of political writing.  The first, one that is created to influence politics in real life  The second, one that engages the realities of the world Examples of the second form of political writing are: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and In one way or another all writing is political because it embraces the human condition in a sociopolitical situation of some kind.