Foster (Ch. 12 & Interlude, p. 183)

"Is that a symbol ?. Sure why not........What does it stand for ?.........What do you think ?. Seriously what do you think it stands for, because that's probably what it does. " (Foster Pg. 97)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AndreaNestler/2008/02/this_is_very_true__foster_pg_9.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KayleyDardano/2008/02/what_do_they_really_mean.html
“ Every reader’s experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees, those differences will cause certain features of the text to become more or less pronounced.”

"Your novel may contain echoes or refutations of novels or poems you've never read" (Foster 189).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/KaitlinMonier/2008/02/unique_ideas.html

“We want it to mean something, don’t we? More than that, we want it to mean some thing, one thing for all of us and for all time. That would be easy, convenient, manageable for us. But that handiness would result in a net loss: the novel would cease to be what it is, a network of meanings and significations that permits a nearly limitless range of possible interpretations” (Foster 99).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2008/02/more_than_one_right_answer.html

"The few pages of this chapter have taken you a few minutes to read; they have taken me, I'm sorry to say, days and days to write" (How to Read Literature Like a Professor Foster pg. 85).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelaPalumbo/2008/02/welcome_to_the_twilight_zone.html

“On one level, everyone who writes anything knows that pure originality is impossible” (Foster 187)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelicaGuzzo/2008/02/original_or_not.html

"The other problem with symbols is that many readers expect them to be ojects and images rather than events or actions. Action can also be symbolic (Foster 105)."

To read more, visit my blog at:
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/StephanieWytovich/2008/02/is_that_a_symbol_well_duh.html

"And lateral thinking is what we're really discussing: the way writers can keep their eye on the target, whether it be the plot of the play or the ending of the novel or the argument of the poem, and at the same time bring in a great deal of at least tangentially related material." (Foster, Interlude, pg. 85)

I'm just gonna skid sideways on the ice. )
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MadelynGillespie/2008/02/lateral_thinkingkinda_like_ski.html

“At the far end of the spectrum, we might be reminded of Plato, who in the “Parable of the Cave” section of The Republic (fifth century B.C.) gives us an image of the cave as consciousness and perception” (Foster 100).

View more at:

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JeanineONeal/2008/02/the_answers_in_the_cave.html

Blog wouldn't work...again.

"The thing referred to is likely not reducible to a single statement but will more probably involve a range of possible meanings and interpretations." (Foster 98)

I used to get so frustrated in high school English when a teacher would make the class try to interpret a poem or a passage. It seemed I could never get the correct meaning. Sometimes, when the teacher would announce the "correct" meaning of the passage, I would feel completely opposed to the answer. Sometimes I would find a different meaning than the "correct" one suggested. It never seemed like it was possible to have only one answer to the interpretation, but that was what we were forced to find. Now that I know there are many possibilites and usually not just one interpretation, I understand the frustration I felt in high school was due to the fact that a certainm passage meant something different to me than it meant to whoever wrote the "right" interpretation. And thats finally okay!

"Don't bother looking for the originals though. You can't find the archetype, just as you can't find the pure myths. What we have, even in our earliest recorded literature, are variants, embellishments, versions, what Frye called "displacement" of the myth. We can never get all the way to the level of pure myth, even when a work like The Lord of the Rings or The Odyssey or The Old Man and the Sea feels 'mythic', since even those works are displacements of myth" (Foster, Interlude, pg 191).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AllisonHall/2008/02/just_stop_looking_youll_never.html

...does this remind you of The Notebook?
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelseaOliver/2008/02/el150_oh_nicholas_sparks.html

"Every reader's experience of every work is unique, largely because each person will emphasize various elements to differing degrees" (Foster 103).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EthanShepley/2008/02/different_experiences.html

"Here's the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just any something, but one something in particular" (Foster 97).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/TiffanyGilbert/2008/02/what_is_black_and_white_and_re.html

"When someone asks about meaning, I usually come back with something clever, like "Well, what do you think?" Everyone either thinks I'm being a wise guy or ducking responsibility, but neither is the case. Seriously, what do you think it stands for, because that's probably what it does."

For some reason I cannot link my blog to this page, so here is my blog:

I found Foster’s chapter entitled “Is That a Symbol” to be very relevant to our current study of short stories and poems. At one point, Foster writes, “…you start breaking sown the work at hand into manageable pieces. Associate freely, brainstorm, take notes. Then you can organize your thoughts, grouping them together under headings, rejecting or accepting different ideas or meanings as they seem to apply. Ask questions of the text: what’s the writer doing with this image, this object, this act; what possibilities are suggested by the movement of the narrative or the lyric; and most important, what does it feel like it’s doing?” (106). This quote reminded me of my 11th grade English teacher who first taught me how to critically read a text. She would actually grade us on our questions and comments that we wrote in the margins of copied texts. These exercises really helped me to do everything that Foster says we should do to effectively analyze a text. I have also found that looking at the text from the creator’s perspective helps. If you think “If I wrote this work, what would I do to make it effective?” then you as the reader will be more easily able to find the author’s hidden meanings and be able to support your ideas with examples from the text.

I used to think it was this great gift "literary geniuses" have, but i'm not so sure anymore. I sometimes teach a creative writing course, and my aspiring fiction writers frequently bring in biblical parallels, classical or Shakespearean allusions, bits of REM songs, fairy tale fragments, anything you can think of. And neither they nor I would claim that anybody in that room is a genuis. It's something that starts happening when a reader/writer and a sheet of paper get locked in a room together. (Foster 85-86)

"Here's the problem wih symbols: people expect them to mean something"(Foster 97).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianaCox/2008/02/theres_a_problem_with_symbols.html

"Along about now you should be asking a question, something like this: you keep saying that the writer is alluding to this obscure work and using that symbol or following some pattern or other that I never heard of, but does he really intend to do that? Can anyone really have all that going on in his head at one time?" (Foster 82).

"Along about now you should be asking a question, something like this: you keep saying that the writer is alluding to this obscure work and using that symbol or following some pattern or other that I never heard of, but does he really intend to do that? Can anyone really have all that going on in his head at one time?" (Foster 82).

Read more here: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LaurenMiller/2008/02/so_symbolism_happens_on_purpos.html