Lamron Lit Corner: How to Read Literature Like a Professor and what the classics mean

“Reading […] is a full-contact sport; we crash up against the wave of words with all of our intellectual, imaginative, and emotional resources.”

~ Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor

There exists an overwhelming and particularly powerful misconception among American citizens that classic literature is unapproachable, aged, and avoidable. As someone who came into Geneseo as a psychology major, I was among the population that believed this—that supported, even, the idea that the past is best kept right where it is. Obviously, after 23 issues of the Lamron Lit Corner, it is obvious that I no longer subscribe to this idea, and that is largely thanks to Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor.

It’s important to note first and foremost that despite the word “professor” appearing in the title, this book is not written for academics. In fact, its primary audience is normal, everyday readers who don’t have a pre-established connection to classic literature. Not only is the language and prose easy to follow and understand, but Foster even includes some humor and anecdotes to prove what his claims about reading techniques. As a professor himself, he explicitly states that a major purpose for writing the book is to get his students excited about classic works. There’s an inherent drive that moves the book along, giving it a nice arc that teaches as well as entertains.

In terms of the actual techniques Foster offers, they work perfectly as an introduction to the kind of works you may have heard of but haven’t mustered the confidence to read. From fairly simple ideas like how modern storytelling stems from either the Bible, fairy tales, or Shakespeare, to more advanced concepts about how all storytelling is reworking the same one story over and over infinitely, the work offers ideas that would not only help with comprehension but with schoolwork and essay writing as well. 

Foster consistently plays off of the idea that readers are coming into his book having been turned away from the classics from high school curriculum, even using many of the novels that frequently appear on syllabi as examples on what secondary education misses. Whether it be Fitzgerald, Dickens, Morrison, or Tolkien, Foster offers ideas that translate complicated histories into simple modernity.

If classic literature is something you’re still not interested in, Foster also wrote a number of other guides like How to Read Poetry Like A Professor, How to Read Nonfiction Like A Professor, How to Read Novels Like A Professor, Reading the Silver Screen, and How to Write Like a Writer that cover a number of other storytelling topics. Rigorous and casual readers alike can’t go wrong with Foster’s guides; not only are they educational and essential to the toolkit for students, but a perfect introduction to the past world of literature. I can safely say that without Foster, the Lamron Lit Cornerwould not exist.