How to Read Literature Like a Professor (31 page)

Miller, Henry

Milton, John

Moby-Dick
(Melville)

Moonlighting
(TV program)

Morphology of the Folktale
(Propp)

Morrison, Toni

and baptism/rebirth

and Bible

and fairy/folk tales

and flights of fancy

and geography

and mythology

and one story

and physical deformities

and politics

and violence

and weather

Mountolive
(Durrell)

“Move It on Over” (song)

“Mowing” (Frost)

Mrs. Dalloway
(Woolf)

Much Ado About Nothing
(Shakespeare)

Murdoch, Iris

“Musée des Beaux Arts” (Auden)

mythology

Nabokov, Vladimir

Napoleon Symphony
(Burgess)

Narnia novels (C. S. Lewis)

Nelson, Willie

“Night Moves” (song)

Nights at the Circus
(Carter)

Nightwood
(Barnes)

Nin, Anaïs

North by Northwest
(film)

Notorious
(film)

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
(film)

Oates, Joyce Carol

O’Brien, Edna

O’Brien, Tim

O’Connor, Flannery

The Odyssey
(Homer)

Oedipus at Colonus
(Sophocles)

Oedipus Rex
(Sophocles)

Of Time and the River
(Wolfe)

The Old Curiosity Shop
(Dickens)

The Old Man and the Sea
(Hemingway)

Omeros
(Walcott)

On the Road
(Kerouac)

Ordinary People
(Guest)

Oresteia
(Aeschylus)

originality

Orwell, George

Othello
(Shakespeare)

Othello
(TV show)

Our Mutual Friend
(Dickens)

“Out, Out--” (Frost)

“The Overcoat” (Gogol)

“The Overcoat II” (Boyle)

Ovid

Pale Rider
(film)

Paradise Lost
(Milton)

Paradise Regained
(Milton)

Parks, Tim

Party Going
(Green)

Pascal, Blaise

A Passage to India
(Forster)

“The Pedersen Kid” (Gass)

Peele, George

“The Pentecost Castle” (Hill)

perspective

physical deformities

The Picture of Dorian Gray
(Wilde)

pigeonholing

Pilgrim’s Progress

The Plague
(Camus)

Plath, Sylvia

Plato

The Plumed Serpent
(Lawrence)

Poe, Edgar Allan

politics

Porter, Cole

The Portrait of a Lady
(James)

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
(Joyce)

Pound, Ezra

The Prince and the Pauper
(Twain)

Propp, Vladimir

psychological realism

Puccini, Giacomo

Pulp Fiction
(film)

“Puss-in-Boots” (fairy tale)

Pynchon, Thomas

quests

Quin, Ann

Rabbit, Run
(Updike)

Raiders of the Lost Ark
(film)

The Rainbow
(Lawrence)

Rains, Claude

“Rapunzel” (fairy tale)

Reagan, Ronald

Red River
(film)

Reed, Ishmael

The Remorseful Day
(Dexter)

The Republic
(Plato)

Rice, Anne

Rich, Adrienne

Richard III
(Shakespeare)

Richardson, Dorothy

“The River” (O’Connor)

“The Road Not Taken” (Frost)

Robbins, Tom

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” (Lawrence)

Roethke, Theodore

Romeo and Juliet
(Shakespeare)

A Room with a View
(Forster)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
(Stoppard)

Rossetti, Christina

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel

Rowling, J. K.

Rumpelstiltskin (fairy tale)

Rushdie, Salman

Russell, Ken

The Sacred Fount
(James)

Saint, Eva Marie

Samson Agonistes
(Milton)

Sartre, Jean-Paul

The Satanic Verses
(Rushdie)

Schulz, Charles

seasons of the year

Seger, Bob

“Sestina: Altaforte” (Pound)

Seuss, Dr.

A Severed Head
(Murdoch)

sex

Shakespeare, William

and baptism/rebirth

borrowing from

and disease

and fairy/folk tales

and flights of fancy

and heart

and intentionality

and literary canon

as mythology

and one story

and perspective/viewpoint

and physical deformities

and seasons

sonnets of

and symbolism

and viewpoint

and violence

See also specific work

Shane
(film)

Shaw, George Bernard

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
(film)

Shelley, Mary

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Shikibu, Murasaki

Silko, Leslie Marmon

Silvers, Phil

Simon & Garfunkel

The Simpsons
(TV program)

Sir Gawain and the Green Kinght
(poem)

“The Sisters” (Joyce)

Sitwell, Edith

“Sleeping Beauty” (fairy tale)

Smiley, Jane

Smith, Stevie

“The Snow Man” (Stevens)

“Snow White” (fairy tale)

“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (Hemingway)

Something Wicked This Way Comes
(Bradbury)

Song of Solomon
(Morrison)

sonnets

“Sonny’s Blues” (Baldwin)

Sontag, Susan

Sophocles

The Sound and the Fury
(Faulkner)

Spenser, Edmund

Spielberg, Steven

St. Paul

Star Trek
(TV program)

Star Wars
(film)

Steinbeck, John

Stevens, Wallace

Stevenson, Robert Louis

Stewart, Rod

Stoker, Bram

Stoppard, Tom

The Story of O
(Reage)

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(Stevenson)

The Sun Also Rises
(Hemingway)

Swift, Jonathan

symbolic meaning

The Tale of Genji
(Shikibu)

The Taming of the Shrew
(Shakespeare)

Tarantino, Quentin

Taylor, Edward

Tchaikovsky, Pietr

Tempest
(film)

The Tempest
(Shakespeare)

Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Tess of the D’Urbervilles
(Hardy)

test case

Thelma and Louise
(film)

Thomas, Dylan

Thoreau, Henry David

Thorogood, George

A Thousand Acres
(Smiley)

The Thousand and One Nights
(fairy/folk tale)

“The Three Strangers” (Hardy)

To the Lighthouse
(Woolf)

Tolkien, J. R.

Tolstoy, Leo

Tom Jones
(Fielding)

Tom Jones
(film)

Tongues of Flame
(Parks)

Treasure Island
(Stevenson)

Trevor, William

The Turn of the Screw
(James)

Twain, Mark

and baptism/rebirth

and geography

and irony

and one story

and physical deformities

and quests

and symbolism

and violence

Twelfth Night
(Shakespeare)

“Two Gallants” (Joyce)

“Two More Gallants” (Trevor)

Tyler, Anne

Ulysses
(Joyce)

“
Ulysses
, Order, and Myth” (Eliot)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(Stowe)

The Unicorn
(Murdoch)

Updike, John

vampires

Verlaine, Paul

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (Márquez)

Victorian literature

See also specific author

viewpoint

violence

Virgil

The Virgin and the Gypsy
(Lawrence)

Vizenor, Gerald

Vonnegut, Kurt

Wagner, Richard

Waiting for Godot
(Beckett)

“The Waking” (Roethke)

Walcott, Derek

The Waste Land
(Eliot)

weather

Weldon, Fay

Welty, Eudora

The Wench Is Dead
(Dexter)

West Side Story
(musical/film)

Weston, Jessie L.

Whitelaw, Billie

Whitman, Walt

“Why I Live at the P.O.” (Welty)

“The Wild Swans at Coole” (Yeats)

Wilde, Oscar

Williams, Hank

Williams, William Carlos

Wilson, August

The Wind in the Willows
(Grahame)

The Wings of the Dove
(James)

A Winter’s Tale
(Shakespeare)

Wise Children
(Carter)

Wolfe, Thomas

The Woman Who Rode Away
(Lawrence)

Women in Love
(film)

Women in Love
(Lawrence)

Woolf, Virginia

Wordsworth, William

Yeats, William Butler

“Yellow Woman” (Silko)

“Yom Kippur, 1984” (Rich)

A Broad Overview of Literature

• A lively and entertaining guide to making your reading experience more rewarding and fun.
  
• Focuses on literary basics: major themes and motifs (seasons, quests, food, politics, geography, weather, vampires, violence, illness, and many more); literary models (Shakespeare’s plays, Greek mythology, fairy tales, the Bible); and narrative devices (form, irony, plot, and symbol, among others).
  
• Draws on a huge variety of examples from all genres: novels, short stories, plays, poems, movies, song lyrics, and cartoons.
  
• Encourages readers to test their knowledge on the short story “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield, offering comments and ideas along the way.
  

Based on Twenty-five Years of Experience and Expertise

• Thomas C. Foster has been teaching students how to read literature for more than twenty-five years.
  
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor
  approaches the often intimidating domain of literature in accessible and nonacademic prose. It is not a textbook but an engaging companion for readers to discover the possibilities of modern and classic literature.
  

The Perfect Resource for Reading Groups

• With its informal style and easy approach to literature,
  How to Read Literature Like a Professor
  is a useful and practical tool for reading groups and book clubs.
  

Suggests Further Reading Material

• Includes a comprehensive list of novels, poems, and plays that readers may find enjoyable and challenging.
  
• Offers suggestions for secondary sources on reading, interpretation, and criticism.