Chapter 10: Does He Mean That?
How To Read Literature Like a Professor
We should use the hints and allegations to see beyond the text.... until we can see the author's forethought.... we cannot really assess their purpose.
What we have to work with is hints and allegations, really, evidence, sometimes only a trace, that points to something lying behind the text. It’s useful to keep in mind that any aspiring writer is probably also a hungry, aggressive reader as well and will have absorbed a tremendous amount of literary history and literary culture. By the time she writes her books, she has access to that tradition in ways that need not be conscious. Nevertheless, whatever parts have infiltrated her consciousness are always available to her.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
