How to Read Literature Like a Professor

by Thomas C. Foster

Genres: Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Thomas C. Foster is Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he teaches classes in contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry as well as creative writing and composition. Foster has been teaching literature and writing since 1975, the last twenty-one years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.

In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989), and Understanding John Fowles(University of South Carolina Press, 1994). His novel The Professor's Daughter, is in progress.

Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements—James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen, Twain.

Author photograph courtesy of HarperCollins.

Reviews

[Ben Rashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

How to Read Literature Like a Professor was pretty good--Lots of good ideas mixed with more mediocre ones told in a sarcastic, informal tone that eventually becomes annoying. It's a wonderful tool for introducing close reading to absolute beginners. It provides a sort of toolbox full of common symbols and their meanings, but the true usefulness comes from being able to apply Foster's method to symbols you find. This becomes frustrating later on in the book, as it feels whenever Foster introduces a new symbol, he adds far too much information about what it could possibly mean, so much so that it feels like a symbol doesn't have much of a predictable trend at all--which begs the question why go into specifics? On top of this, I became frustrated with Foster's tone, which became grating in certain chapters that felt especially unnecessary. However, this book is still a great resource, with wonderful intermission chapters to reshape your thinking around literature, ending with a short story plus analysis for practice, and generally just told in a way that makes one feel Foster's love of literature.

[Elli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love romantasy and epic universes and love that wraps you up and makes you cry. But I also crave the big thinks of a subtle symbol. Thomas C. Foster’s How To Read Literature Like a Professor was such a great way for me to bridge the gap between personal, professional, and academic. I can love reading all day - but what am I doing to help progress the conversation or the artform? I can’t impact change until I understand how! Thankfully this book is created to help readers comprehend the deep valleys of plot tools and high peaks of literary references.

Read More... https://open.substack.com/pub/docgilb...

[Caitlin Nikolai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insights on how to read and get more from what you read!

[Ella Douglas · Rating 1 out of 5]

(1.75 ⭐️) It was a good book up until the 200 page mark. After that, it was like a book review and random summaries. It could’ve been shorter. And this book definitely put me to sleep.

[Weston Hory · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is good for being provided with different ways to analyze literature but the author’s presence in the book is just not necessary and his comments throughout are at times annoying.

[bridget michel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would’ve been better if I knew even half of the books he referenced. Actually If I even knew a fifth of the books he referenced.