How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Chapters 4-Interlude
I this reading I learned how to understand sonnets better and that the shape of the poem, like how wide and the number of lines, can be important in the hidden message of the poem. For example, one poem was long and thin to show a falling man. Also, everything is repeated. Thinking about where you have seen a person before can give you more insight on the story you are reading. There is always only one story, the rest are, once again, repeated. Because learning where you've seen a character before can give you more insight, the more you read the better. Shakespeare is what everyone knows, whether they know it or not, and most authors use Shakespeare in their stories. Shakespeare is the one book pretty much every school teaches. If all the sudden a quote is thrown in that doesn't go with the tone on the rest of the page, it is probably from the Bible. Three types of myth are Shakespearean, biblical, and folk/fairy tale. The four great struggles are with nature, with the divine, with other humans, and with ourselves. Weather is never just weather. For example rain can mean cleansing, but it can also be dirty if you step in mud. It can bring new beginnings or it can be mysterious. Fog is usually for confusion, but rainbows are very uncommon and it's hard to see the meaning of them.