Brief introduction of the author
Thomas Foster, a professor at the University of Michigan, specializes in 20th century English, Irish and American literature, teaching classical literature, contemporary literature and creative writing. His literature class is the most popular open literature class in America. He has written many academic research works, and the best-selling literary reading guides "How to read a literary book" and "How to read a novel" are his most popular works.
abstract
You didn't know that you would fall in love with literature before you met this book.
After How to Read a Novel, Thomas Foster, the most popular open literature professor in the United States, made a brand-new comb of novels, movies, plays, poems and other literary works, telling us how easy and interesting it is to explore literature and find "mushrooms".
The purpose of traveling is by no means as simple as it seems. Eating a meal is not just about filling your stomach. Rain and snow are not the problem of weather forecast. The hidden meanings in these documents can enrich your reading experience with the help of the author's three magic weapons, more than 20 tips and appreciation of 300 works.
classic quotations
What is a novel? The novel is a criss-crossing network of meanings, with endless explanatory space.
There are no completely original literary works in the world.
Memory. Symbol. Mode. These three items are the most critical to distinguish literature professors from ordinary readers.
Recognizing literary patterns depends partly on talent, but mainly on practice: if you read enough books and think deeply enough, you can gradually sum up patterns and prototypes in repeated situations. As Slopfry, a great Canadian critic, said, literary works grow from other literary works.
A pursuit includes five factors: (1) a seeker, (2) the destination, (3) the reason for claiming to go to that destination, (4) the challenges and tests encountered on the road, and (5) the real reason for going to the destination.
A poem can attract readers in many aspects: the choice of images, the musical sense of language, the ideological content and clever word games. If this charm comes from sonnets, at least part of the answer lies in form.
In the face of personal tragedy, the world still operates as usual.
Homer described for us the four major struggles of mankind: against heaven, against God, against man and against himself. In the final analysis, the so-called meaning of life is not to prove yourself by entangled these four.
Bian Xiao Xin Yu
This flower, which we call a rose, will still smell the same if we change its name. -Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II
There is only one story. I think the only story, the only myth, is about ourselves.
The meaning of words is not what the creators of words want to express. Only after the reader's understanding is completed can the text be endowed with complete meaning. The process of understanding on the reader's side may give birth to unexpected new meanings. If Shakespeare saw the interpretation of House of Cards, how could he not applaud the new Richard III and Iago and look forward to Frank's future story like us? But I believe he will also lament that we can't understand some of the ideas he wanted to express 400 years ago. He might grab Thomas Ostermaya by the collar and tell him that the relationship between Hamlet and Norwegian prince Fuding Brass should be shown in one way or another. But the director and our audience will tell him that we will try to look at the script from the perspective of 16 th century Hamlet, but we choose to understand it this way because it is meaningful to us in 2 1 century.
There are a thousand Hamlets in the hearts of a thousand people, which emphasizes the role of readers in text interpretation. Maybe it's too much emphasis. There is only one Shakespeare, a poet and playwright who lived in the second half of the sixteenth century. Thomas Foster tried to emphasize this point to us. He believes that even if it is only a short story that we can finish in a few minutes, it will take the author several days or even longer to finish it; In the process of writing, the author will constantly think horizontally and pass on what he has read and seen to the imaginary readers through writing. Readers can better understand the meaning of the story by contacting their own memories, exploring the symbols in literary works and discovering the patterns used in the works, and at the same time add a lot of fun to their reading. "This story has been circulating around us. We just need to reach out and pick one. "
Text/Yan Yuping
Typesetting/Zhao Xiaoyang
Audit /Lv Song Zhuo