Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Quote from Foster

What exactly do you mean by "one of"? do we read all of them and only blog on one? or do we choose one to read?

How does violence differ in real life than in literature? Violence is all of the following: cultural, societal, symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, Romantic?, allegorical, and transcendent.

"We tend to give writers all the credit, but reading is also an event of the imagination; our creativity, our inventiveness, encounters that of the writer, and in the meeting we puzzle out what she means, what we understand her to mean, what uses we can put her writing to."
~page 107
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JenniferPrex/2009/02/creative_readers.html

"I used to think this was a great gift 'literary geniuses' have, but I'm not so sure anymore."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AprilMinerd/2009/02/push_harder.html

"Violence in real life just is. If someone punches you in the nose in a supermarket parking lot, it's simply aggression. It doesn't contain meaning beyond the act itself. Violence in literature, though, while it is literal, is usually also something else" (Foster 88). I had never considered this before, and it struck me as universally true. http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AlyssaSanow/2009/02/buried_brilliance.html

This blog entry may be off topic but...
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RachaelSarver/2009/02/usless_blog_entry.html

"It's useful to keep in mind that any aspiring writer is probably also a hungry, agressive reader as well and will have absorbed a tremendous amount of literary history and literary culture."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/NathanHart/2009/02/leave_the_writing_to_writers.html

"You keep saying that the writer is alluding to this obscure work..." pg 82

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JoshuaWilks/2009/02/its_just_a_story.html

"Slavery allows its victims no decision-making power over any aspect of their lives, including the decision to live. The lone exception, the only power they have, is that they may choose to die...That Eunice's suicide takes place in a novel that draws its title from a spiritual, in which Moses is asked to "go down" into Egypt to "set my people free," is no accident. If Moses should fail to appear, it may fall to the captive race to take what actions they can to liberate themselves."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AliciaCampbell/2009/02/out_of_optionsthat_were_never.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RosalindBlair/2009/02/symbolically_simple.html

"Here's the problem with symbols: people expect them to mean something. Not just any something, but one something in particular. Exactly. Maximum. You know what? It doesn't work like that." -Foster p.97-98

"Writing that engages the realities of its world--that thinks about human problems, including those in the social and political realm, that addresses the rights of persons and the wrongs of those in power--can be not only interesting but hugely compelling."
pg. 110
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MatthewHenderson/2009/02/writing_that_engages_the_reali.html

Interpretations: "It's like always listening to a song you love in the car, then finally catching the music video on MTV, and it just doesn't agree with the mental picture you had."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AprilMinerd/2009/02/flexibility.html

Chapter eleven really struck me because it concerned violence in literature. Sure, when we see a rainbow we know to associate it with peace and happiness and love and the occasional covenant. Yes, rain can mean drear and depression, or if it's biblical, a cleansing or purification.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/CarlosPeredo/2009/02/what_doesnt_kill_you_makes_you.html

"But a Christ figure doesn't need to resemble Christ in every way; otherwise he wouldn't be a Christ figure, he'd be, well, Christ."

While Foster might be stating the obvious once again, he adds a bit of a twist to the thought: can we have a not-so ideal Christ figure?

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherDufalla/2009/02/following_in_his_footsteps_not.html

"YOU MIGHT BE A CHRIST FIGURE IF YOU ARE..."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AprilMinerd/2009/02/a_christian_culture.html

Want a Best-seller? Use Christ as a Literary figure!

"If we want to figure out what a symbol might mean, we have to use a variety of tools on it: questions, experience, preexisting knowledge," states Foster, on page 100.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JustinIellimo/2009/02/what_do_caves_symbolize.html

Foster explains on page 109, "I hate "political" writing--- novels, plays, poems. They don't travel well, don't age well, and generally aren't much good in their own time and place,...."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JustinIellimo/2009/02/love_hate_relationship_politic.html

"...we want it to mean some thing, one thing for all of us and for all time." There's never just one interpretation of a symbol!

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MarieVanMaanen/2009/02/symbolism_becomes_personal.html

"Listen to your instincts. Pay attention to what you feel about the text. It probably means something."

"... in general a symbol can't be reduced to standing for only one thing." Page 98

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/NikitaMcClellan/2009/02/judge_literature_like_a_painti.html

Judge Literature like a Painting

"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" (85)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianneBanda/2009/02/fishing_for_compliments.html

Kill the Characters!
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AjaHannah/2009/02/kill_the_characters.html

"We tend to give writers all the credit, but reading is also an event of the imagination;" (Pg 107)
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessicaBitar/2009/02/use_your_imagination.html

Catch 22 vs modern political writing
Classic wins every time

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AndrewAdams/2009/02/politics_in_writing.html

"Much of what we think about literature, we feel first. Having instincts, though, doesn't automatically mean they work at their highest level. Dogs are instinctual swimmers, but not every pup hits the water understanding what to do with that instinct. Reading is like that, too. The more you exercise the symbolic imagination, the better and quicker that works." (Foster 106)

Want a Best-seller? Use Christ as a Literary figure!

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RebeccaMarrie/2009/02/want_a_best-seller_use_christ.html

"Culture is so influenced by its dominant religious systems that whether a writer adheres to the beliefs or not, the values and principles of those religions will inevitably inform the literary work." Foster, page 118

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/SaraBenaquista/2009/02/changing_your_perspective.html

"Pay attention to what you feel about the text. It probably means something." Foster pg.107
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/QuinnKerno/2009/02/its_all_relativ.html

"What the cave symbolizes will be determined to a large extent by how the individual reader engages the text." (Foster 103)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/SueMyers/2009/02/is-a-symbol-by.html