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How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, Revised Edition?
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I read this book years ago. I was like 16 and I found it boring and pretentious because I found everything boring and pretentious at 16, but there’s a chapter on sex scenes that I found inspiring. The TLDR is that they don’t actually have to include sex to be sensual and intimate. If you can find a pdf, it might be worth checking out.
I don't think that's bad at all. That most likely just means you put your priorities or brain power to other things. In fact, you probably have a the best outlook on visual entertainment: as something to enjoy in your free time.
I don't want to write anything incendiary or shallow here, but making any piece of media a core part of your personality is a pretty miserable way to live. The thing you worship, if allowed to continue and grow, will eventually turn into something you don't love, and then it will feel like a personal attack against you. I've seen people end friendship due to bad takes on video game franchises, and these are people that have jobs and pay taxes. Like it's ok if you have a hot take on the deep lore of Harry Potter it's still a fantasy book for children no matter what JK Rowling or people on Twitter want it to be.
But I get what you're saying; you want to be able to enjoy things on a deeper, more analytical level. I work in education, and there's a book I use in my classes: How to Read Literature Like a Professor. The language is very approachable and the concepts discussed inside apply to any narrative structure, be it TV, movies, or video games. For instance, it discusses the importance of communion, not just in the religious context, but when characters just eat together. It often shows some kind of trust or care between them, and if they get into a fight while eating, it's often a sign of the relationship fracturing. Give it a shot!
Maybe try this one: How to read literature like a professor http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/0062301675
Setting yourself the goal to improve your skills is a great first step.
If you'll be working on your own, find a subject you like and read a LOT about it, at every reading level. Notice how the various authors present the subject. It can be really interesting to see how different people perceive the same thing.
Going back to school is also an option. A friend of mine went back to school and got a degree in LIberal Studies. Basically, it's a little bit of everything on the curriculum. Art, history, literature, science ... .
Another thought is to take up meditation. Training your mind, learning to focus, quieting the inner voice are all useful, no matter what you hope to achieve.
I don't know what you're aiming for, but the IB curriculum at my school uses How to Read Literature Like a Professor. It's not as regimented as a "This is marxism, this is psychoanalysis, this is new, etc." type book, but it's very accessible and very useful for teenagers.
Well... I mean, subtext is not the only important thing, but it's still important. I really enjoy poets who create meaning not only through the literal meaning of words, but through the usage of words (and they definitely do so intentionally). I think the real problem is that that kind of thing can feel clinical and detached in the classroom, where you're doing it for a grade. When I'm able to find complexity and deeper meaning in a work I love, though? That's exciting and joyful!
Example: The first works that come to mind when I think are actually songs by my favorite band, The Oh Hellos. Specifically, their EPs Notos and Eurus. They've got this extended metaphor relating God to nature and humanity to man-made structures. Like in the song Constellations -- the central metaphor is the tower of Babel, from the story where humanity tries to build a tower to reach God. God hates their hubrice, so he causes the tower to crumble, and the people to speak different languages so they can't try again. Now, Notos' central theme fundamentalism, the reasons for it, the problems with it, what it's like when you can no longer hold onto it. In that context, the tower of Babel is related to religion. That is, it's something people use to reach God, but it ultimately separates us from him and from each other. The second important metaphor here is constellations. And what's the nature of constellations? Well, they're pictures we see in the stars. But while the stars actually exist in external reality, those pictures only exist in our minds; the actual stars that compose them have no real relationship to each other, and are in fact often light-years apart. (Not to mention, different cultures see different pictures). Their use as a metaphor here seems to be saying that God is something real, but so many our believes about him are just our own human projections.
Can you understand this song without getting all of this? Partially, I think. It took me a while to completely grasp it, but I started picking up on these existential themes from the get-go, like in the chorus, "Like constellations a million years away, every good intention... is interpolation, a line we drew in the array, looking for the faces, looking for the shapes in the silence." I deeply felt that, even if I wasn't really sure what to do with the Tower of Babel references. However! Understanding, rather making the song less for me, made it that much more beautiful! I got chills about it all over again! (I had a similar experience with the rest of the EPs; when I caught how the division between the binaries of God/nature and humanity/structures crumbles over their course, [like with stones being compared to seeds in "Grow"], collapsing completely in "Constellations"' companion song, "Hieroglyphs"... The point is that division between God, nature, and humanity was always an illusion, and... To me that is so utterly beautiful and joyful!)
I guess my point is, you don't have to understand everything going on in a poem to enjoy it. People shouldn't devalue that kind of appreciation. However, I think you shouldn't stop there. It's good to try to understand poems on a deeper level, not because you're supposed to or that it'll make you smart, but because there's so much beauty, love, and joy hidden in between the lines. And how do you get there? It takes learning and practice for most people, because it really is like a code or a foreign language. For me, it started with a book called How to Read Literature Like a Professor that I read for a high school English class (more about prose than poetry, but same idea). Then in college I learned more about different schools of criticism, what to look for, how to figure out where authors were coming from. A lot of this involved... Well, I think one of the best ways to practice is to read other peoples' analyses. Find a poem you love, read it over and over, see what stands out to you about it. Then read what other people have written about it. Overtime, you'll find yourself applying what you've learned to unfamiliar poetry. If you're passionate about it, if you enjoy figuring it out, if you thirst after understanding, then I think you'll discover so much!
While admittedly mainstream and "entry level," How To Read Literature Like A Professor is a fun read.
References:
"Melody of the Heart" by "Eruwenn"
"Body Rituals Among the Nacirema" by Harold Miner
_ _ _
A note from the author-behind-the-author:
A big thank you to Eruwenn for letting me use their work, if you have not checked out "Melody of the Heart," please do so. If you would like your work to be considered for analysis, please send me a private message with a link to the story.
This is going to be a BIG endeavor and I am grateful to all the authors who have already reached out to me and sent me their stories. This chapter is an introduction in a lot of ways; some of the other chapters might have multiple parts, depending on how strong I think the arguments are and how many stories I am able to examine/pull from.
An airing of scholarly biases: I am not a Literary Critic. In fact, I am a philosophy and religious studies scholar, so I am going off of what I know from a class in Aesthetics and many, many years as a reader and writer. If you have suggestions for books on Literary Criticism that you think could aid me in this journey, I would be tickled pink for you to send me the name.
Currently, I am working mostly from "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas C Foster. It has been a good foundational text, but I am always looking for more. If you are not a writer yourself but know of an author that has published a story on the HFY subreddit within the last year (and is still active on Reddit) you are more than welcome to send recommendations for stories my way, but I cannot guarantee they will make it into the analysis, as I am going solely on works that I get permission for.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This has been extraordinarily fun so far and I hope iit brings you as much joy reading it as it has me writing it. Good words, y'all.
If you enjoy my writing, you can find more here.
I found the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines helpful when it comes to symbolism. If you have time, you might want to skim through it.
I mean there are basically two ways. One: improve your fundamentals. That's like the long-term strategy. Basically, read like crazy. New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York Times, non-fiction books, and what not. It's like if you don't even have the muscle to throw a three-pointer, then it's pretty much pointless to practice 3pts.
Second is to learn some reading skills. Annotations, skimming & scanning, etc. Personally I'm not a big fan of these, but they do come in handy if you don't have, like 5 months to incrementally improve your reading.
If you do have the time, I would recommend the following two books: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Literature-Like-Professor/dp/0062301675/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062301675&pd_rd_r=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6&pd_rd_w=4BP03&pd_rd_wg=oJkPO&psc=1&refRID=35Q5NY3NKYMXGNRRAZZ6
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Classic-Intelligent/dp/0671212095
1.) Your courses will give you enough of a reading list to keep yourself busy; I wouldn't try to cram in too much more, at least not during the school year. I'd check out How to Read Literature Like a Professor if you find yourself struggling with your classes, and On Writing Well and Elements of Style if you're struggling with your essays.
2.) I wish I'd done something non-writing related. I had internships and work study positions and worked for the campus newspaper and all of that stuff so I almost got... burned out? on writing and books. It took a little while to recover.
3.) Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping was great. I also had a class where the only book we read was Ulysses. I wouldn't have been able to make myself read that book without a semester long class, but I'm glad that I did. Now I never have to again.
4.) Learn how to skim your readings. If you've got a couple hundred pages of reading each week, there just aren't enough hours to do it all.
5.) See #2
6.) See #1. Also: go to office hours. I know professors can seem intimidating, but they don't want you to fail. Most of them are just sitting there during their office hours, twiddling their thumbs.
It's been said by many that all of English literature is just remixing Shakespeare and the Bible. For instance
I blame this book
Curse you AP Literature
Check out How to Read Literature Like a Professor
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