1. How To Read Literature Like A Professor
Chapter 1: Every Trip Is A Quest
(Except When It’s Not)
By: Sarah n’ Stevi

2. A Quest Consists Of Five Main Things:
A quester (person taking a quest)
A place to go
A stated reason to go there
Challenges and trials in route
A real reason to go there

3. A stated reason for the quest is never the real reason.
Most of the time, the quester fails at the stated task
The quest is educational
Self-knowledge is the real reason for a quest

4. References: Thomas Pynchons’ “Crying a Lot” (1965)
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (14th C)
Edmond Spencer’ “Faerie Queen” (1596)
Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” (ca. 425 BC)
“Huck Finn”
“ The Lord of the Rings”
“ North By Northwest”
“ Star Wars”

5. Chapter 2
Nice to Eat with You:
Acts of Communion

6. “Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion.”
Communion- a shared experience that bonds people. (not just religiously)

7. Food is included in literature not because the meal itself is necessarily entertaining, but because there is something in the plot that needs to be resolved during the meal.

8. Sometimes friends eat and commune together.
Other times enemies do.

9. Meals are usually a way to make or keep friendly bonds.
But not always.

10. If the meal doesn’t go well, it is a bad sign.
The person who caused conflict betrayed the unwritten rule of literature, you must be nice to your dinner companion.

11. “Cathedral” (1981) by Raymond Carver
The main character is disgusted by a blind man, a friend of his wife, who is coming for a visit. The solution to his problem is a meal.
Eating gives them something in common and helps break down the character’s antipathy toward the blind man.
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) by Anne Tyler
“The Dead” (1914) by James Joyce

12. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982) by Anne Tyler
A mother fails to have a successful family dinner.
Not until after her death are her children able to all get together to have a meal.

13. “The Dead” (1914) by James Joyce
Centered around a dinner party on the 12th day of Christmas.
Great detail of the meal is used to pull readers into the story and convey the theme of tension.
Dinner conversations lead readers to realize that what everyone has in common is morality.

14. Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
Chapter 3
Jason McArthur
Henry Youn

15. References Found in the Chapter
Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Hamlet by Shakespeare
A Christmas Carol by Dickens
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1886)
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Master of Ballantrae (1889)

16. More References Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy
The Metamorphosis and A Hunger Artist
by Franz Kafka
The Fox and Women in Love
by D.H Lawrence
A Severed Head and The Union
by Iris Murdock

17. What’s the Chapter About?
Vampirism- selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people (not just about vampires)
Ghosts- not just for haunting (Marley and Hamlet’s father)
Overall Message: Exploitation comes in many forms in literature, and this is conveyed in the forms of vampires and ghosts, although the ghosts may not always be visible.

18. If it is a square, It’s Sonnet Chapter 4

19. If it sounds like a duck, looks like a duck…
it’s a sonnet.

20. Magic in the sonnet
Images, music of the language, idea content, cleverness of wordplay.
Petrarchan 8 + sestet 6 or
Shakespeare “quatrain” (4+4+4)

21. formation The sonnet form is normally recognized by square formation.
Formation is only meant to be a guideline for the information that is provided by the author.

22. Information
The formation is the most recognized part of the sonnet but from the author’s point of view, the information inside is what really counts.
Sonnet’s main purpose is the base of the information.
Is there a meaning behind the words?
Read the sonnet for meaning, then look at the structure.

23. Credits By: Tyler Nedley & Josh Hébert
Google images <
“How to Read Literature like a professor”

24. Chapter 5 Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
By:
Benjamin Alexander Cohen XVI
&
Kelly Rand Hefelfinger III

25. There’s only one story…
Every author pulls his/her stories or poems from texts which he has previously read. This is the idea that each story is based on the one before creating an encompassing story.
Intertextuality- the ongoing interaction between poems and stories.

26. There’s no such thing as a wholly, original work of literature…
Since every author pulls information and ideas from other authors, no piece of literature is truly original; no author creates something entirely new. Everything is influenced by the lessons and texts from before.
The only original works were the first—maybe even going back to the Bible.

27. Literature References:
Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland
Angela Carter’s Wise Children
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s The Overcoat II
Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat
William Trevor’s Two More Gallants
James Joyce’s Two Gallants
John Gardner’s Grendel
Beowulf

28. When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare
by: Alli Shepard and Gabby Waxman

29. Adaptations of Shakespeare
Broadway Musicals: “The Taming of the Shrew” became “Kiss me Kate,” and “Romeo and Juliet” became “West Side Story”
Books: “King Lear” became A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, and books such as Brave New World and The Sound and the Fury borrow their titles from Shakespearean quotations.
Television: “Othello” appears on Masterpiece Theater, “Hamlet” appears on Gilligan’s Island

30. Shakespeare Familiar Quotes “To thine own self be true”
“Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble”
“O brave new world, that has such people in it!”
“ All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players.”
And of course the unforgettable:
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
Shakespeare

31. Why Borrow From Shakespeare?
Quotations so familiar to a wide audience, whether they have read Shakespeare or not.
A “credible” source for quoting, rather than Rocky and Bullwinkle
Heightens the authors writing by bringing to mind specific characters or situations. For example, Hamlet instead of a generic tragic hero figure.
Classically humorous or tragic stories that can be adapted to endless places and time periods.

32. What’s in it for the reader’s?
The new writer has his own agenda, her own slant to put on things.
Our understanding of both works becomes richer and deeper as we hear the dialogue played out.
The imagination in question is not just for the writer’s, but also for the reader’s.

33. …Or the Bible.
Chapter Seven, or How Everything Ever is Really a Biblical Allusion
As explained by
Thomas C. Foster

34. -Biblical allusions used by writers, poets, playwrights, etc.
-Employ Biblical language
-Often reference or parallel Bible stories/parables (e.g., Garden of Eden/The Fall, Apocalypse, The Prodigal Son, Cain and Abel)
- Utilize Biblical names
-Derive titles from applicable bible verses

35. -Sacred texts of other religions are often used as well (e. g
-Sacred texts of other religions are often used as well (e.g., The Satanic Verses, a parody of the Koran)
-Identify reference as a possible biblical allusion if it seems to resonate outside of its functional context
-Used to foster a sense of universality; create pathos

36. Literary References
The Bible Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino East of Eden –John Steinbeck Beloved ; Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison Pale Rider – Clint Eastwood Araby – James Joyce Tongues of Flame – Tim Parks Absalom, Absalom! ; Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway Paradise Lost ; Paradise Regained ;Samson Agonistes – John Milton Beowulf Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Faerie Queen – Edmund Spenser The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer Four Quartets; The Waste Lands;
Journey of the Magi ; Ash Wednesday - T. S. Eliot The Pentecost Castle; Canaan – Geoffrey Hill Yom Kippur – Adrienne Rich The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie Why I Live at the P.O. – Eudora Welty Sonny’s Blues ; Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin

37. Jennifer Dady and Katie Smith
How to Read Literature Like A Professor: Ch.8 – Hanseldee and Greteldum
Jennifer Dady
and
Katie Smith

38. Successful Works that Work
Works Mentioned
Successful Works that Work
Works that DON’T Work
Works that DO Work
Kiddie lit in general
Alice in Wonderland
Treasure Island
Narnia novels
The Wind in the Willows
The Cat in the Hat
Goodnight Moon
Green Eggs and Ham
“Snow White”
“Sleeping Beauty”
“Hansel and Gretel” (ALWAYS a favorite, people identify with it)
Non-Kiddie Lit that could potentially work: Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton
Blind Faith song, “Can’t Find My Way Home” (based on H&G)
Robert Coover’s story, “The Gingerbread House” (plays off original story which everyone knows, then switches it up. Story ends when children reach the gingerbread house.)
Angela Carter’s collection of stories, “The Bloody Chamber” (takes classic fairy tales – Puss-in-Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, etc – and shows how sexist they were, as was the society who embraced the stories)
Ghostbusters (no one is going to know it in 100 years)
The Illiad (people don’t care about Troy anymore)
Shakespeare (too highbrow, all good quotes already taken)
James Joyce (too complicated)
T.S. Elliot (all of his quotes come from somewhere else already)

39. Why Kiddie Lit Works Very Iconic – multigenerational and multicultural
Has been around for ever and will continue to exist forever
Very unambiguous – you know who you like and who you don’t. Bad is bad, and good is good; there is no in between. (ex. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)

40. How a Well Written Story Incorporates Kiddie Literature
Same elements (ex. Lost young rich couple who’s BMW breaks down in an unknown city outside of a crackhouse; parallels to Hansel and Gretel)
a story that is completely knew, but still comfortingly familiar
Irony
When you catch a comparison to kiddie lit, you ask why. What comparison is the author trying to make? What is he trying to make you realize?

41. It’s Greek to me Myth is a body of story that matters.
The patterns present in mythology run deeply in the human consciousness.
When most of think myth, most think of the northern shores between the Mediterranean between two and three thousand years ago. We mean Greece and Rome.
Greek and Roman myth is so much apart of the fabric of our consciousness and our unconscious.
By speaking in “myth” in general is story. The ability of story to explain ourselves to ourselves in ways in which physics, philosophy, mathematics and chemistry cannot.

42. What authors do is they put their characters in situations where their nobility and courage are put to the test while reminding us they are acting out some of the most basic, most primal patterns known to humans exactly as authors such as Homer did centuries before.
Homer gives four great struggles of the human being: with nature, with the divine, with other humans, and with ourselves.

43. The need to protect one’s family: Hector
The determination to remain faithful and to have faith: Penelope
The need to maintain one’s dignity: Achilles
The struggle to return home: Odysseus

44. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Odyssey and Iliad by Homer
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles by Gerald Vizenor
Yellow Woman by Leslie Marmon Silko
Omeros by Derek Walcott

45. The question we will inevitably ask is, Why?
By speaking in “myth” in general is story. The ability of story to explain ourselves to ourselves in ways in which physics, philosophy, mathematics and chemistry cannot.
The question we will inevitably ask is, Why?
Homer gives us four great struggles of the human being: with nature, with the divine, with other humans, and with ourselves.
Myth is a body of story that matters.
What he can do though is he can put them where their nobility and courage are put to the test while reminding us they are acting out some of the most basic, most primal patterns known to humans exactly as Homer did all those centuries before.
The determination to remain faithful and to have faith; Penelope
The need to protect one’s family: Hector
The struggle to return home; Odysseus
The need to maintain one’s dignity: Achilles
The patterns present in mythology run deeply in the human consciousness.

46. Chapter 10 It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow
By: Tye Buckley & Derek Randolph

47. The theme of weather is questioned in chapter ten to hold dual meanings. A prime example is the worn out first line: “It was a dark and stormy night.” However, is it simply just rain? The answered is exposed: “It’s never just rain.”

48. Rain has historically made it attempts to drive humanity back to see when consider in biblical terms: such as Noah’s ark and God’s promise never to flood the earth again in creating the rainbow. However, rain can do a lot more. “That dark and stormy evening has worlds of atmosphere and mood.” Rain, or the weather established in the work, bridges and extends metaphors yet to be discovered and somehow, maintains responsibility for even the actions of the characters. The weather, in summary completes the overall theme established by the author.

49. Rain, snow, sleet, fog, the rainbow
Rain, snow, sleet, fog, the rainbow. All of these contain duality in with their ability to both sustain literal meaning and convey complex metaphors. Thus, weather remains a most important aspect of any successful work. “For now, though, one does well to remember, as one stars reading a poem or story, to check the weather.”