The fundamental thing that all critical reading does is reveal to us that there are not easy definitions that distinguish Us from Them. Reading with an eye toward metaphor allows us to become the person we're reading about while reading about them. That's why there are symbols in books and why your English teacher deserves your attention.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the author intended a symbol to be there because the job of reading is not to understand the author's intent. The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves.
Life is like pizza, Jade, life is like pizza :)
Previously from John Green:
"There is no Them. There are only facets of Us." I have discovered that I need an LJ feed of John Green's YouTube channel (anyone have one? Off I go to search).
Also:
I am vindicated!![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Comments
/rewatches all the baby Henry videos like a dork
He's hilarious. I was laughing so hard.
*off to read The Castle of Otranto for lit class*
However, I read that other post you wrote, which was interesting, and this stuck out to me: How I receive them, though, is a reaction based on my life and my thoughts and experiences. When it comes to "how to read literature" or the "purpose of literature" or the usefulness of it, there isn't just one answer. There's not even one answer for any one person. It's certainly possible to separate your own experiences from a work in order to study it in order to consider, say, the author's intent to discover how it compared with the intents of the author's contemporaries in a certain time period, etc, etc. But, generally, I think what you said can also be true, as art is most commonly viewed through our personal filters. I'd agree that a possible job of reading is to view the world and life from another person's perspective and essentially become that person, for a while (as the quote above suggests). But I couldn't for a second agree that it was the only job of reading.
Mmm, this is such interesting stuff, though. Thanks for posting this.
I think in his video, though, he was referring specifically to fiction. There was an interesting blog post from Fuse #8, a children's librarian, a while back, on whether knowing an author has background in the field they're writing in will make a difference in your reading of the book. I think, to me, it doesn't matter if someone's an expert; it matters how they write about it. That's how I interpret author intent, at least.
I completely agree with you about making blanket statements on the purpose of reading, because you're absolutely right - there's never one reason even for one person. I read Shakespeare for a very different reason than I read Neil Gaiman or Markus Zusak - but I love them both.
You're welcome - thanks for commenting :)