How To Read Literature Like a Professor: Prompt Four

Prompt Four

      Foster, in his book, How To Read Literature Like A Professor, asserts that all literature is part of one large story. That was the first time I have heard that statement and immediately I was skeptical. I began thinking of all the different literary work that is out there and began putting them into different categories and assuming that all the categories were composed of totally different stories. Next, what he said began to click. He used what King Solomon wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun." As a rule to use toward literature. By reading more and being able to go beyond the text, one is able to find many connections to different literary works which can be used as a tool for a deeper understanding of the current work. So yes, I would have to agree with Foster's statement.

     What makes the concept that all "writing and telling belong to one big story." so interesting and amazing is that it, like I said earlier, can be used to better understand what you are reading and make connections. For example, Foster used the Coen brothers film, "O' Brother Where art Thou" and Homer's, "The Odyssey". Although one of which is a film, it is the same premise that everything is part of one big story and is connected somehow. A better example may be the Brothers Grimm book, "Hansel and Gretel" and Robert Coover's, "The Gingerbread House". Foster uses the two books as another example of how writers use references such as the Shakespeare, The Bible or in this case, fairy tales to, as he says, "...to make use of details or patterns, portions of some prior story to add depth and texture ...to bring out a theme... to play with readers' deeply ingrained knowledge of fairy tales." (61-62). So by understanding that all work is connected, the reader can allow his or her mind to freely roam and make connections with other stories to better understand the text at hand.