The Art Of Reading.pdf

The Art of Reading

Professor Timothy Spurgin

T HE T EACHING C OMPANY ®

Timothy Spurgin, Ph.D.

Bonnie Glidden Buchanan Professor of English Literature

Lawrence University

Dr. Timothy Spurgin grew up in Mankato, Minnesota. He graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College,

where he wrote his senior thesis on the role of realism in the English and American novel. During his senior year, he

was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and chosen as the student commencement speaker. On the encouragement of his

teachers at Carleton, he applied for and received a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities. He went on to do his

graduate work at the University of Virginia, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English Literature. Dr. Spurgin’s

doctoral dissertation focused on the novels of Charles Dickens.

Since 1990, Dr. Spurgin has taught at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. His teaching includes courses

on romanticism and contemporary critical theory, as well as a course on the English novel. While at Lawrence,

Dr. Spurgin has received two awards for teaching: the Outstanding Young Teacher Award and the Freshman Studies

Teaching Prize. He has twice served as director of Lawrence’s freshman program, recognized as one of the best in

the nation, and has three times received the Babcock Award, voted on by Lawrence students for the person who

“through involvement and interaction with students has made a positive impact on the campus community.”

Dr. Spurgin’s writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education , Dickens Studies Annual , and Dickens

Quarterly . He previously published a course with The Teaching Company called The English Novel . He lives in

Appleton with his wife, Gretchen Revie, and their wheaten terrier, Penny.

Table of Contents

The Art of Reading

Professor Biography .....................................................................................................................................................i

Course Scope ................................................................................................................................................................1

Lecture One Artful Reading and Everyday Reading.................................................................3

Lecture Two Authors, Real and Implied....................................................................................5

Lecture Three Narrators—Their Voices and Their Visions.........................................................7

Lecture Four Characters—Beyond Round and Flat ...................................................................9

Lecture Five Descriptions—People, Places, and Things .........................................................11

Lecture Six Minimalists to Maximalists to Lyricists .............................................................13

Lecture Seven Explosive Devices—Irony and Ambiguity.........................................................15

Lecture Eight Reading for the Plot—Five Simple Words.........................................................17

Lecture Nine Master Plots—The Stranger and the Journey .....................................................19

Lecture Ten The Game Is Afoot—Sherlock Holmes..............................................................21

Lecture Eleven The Plot Thickens—Scott and Brontë ................................................................23

Lecture Twelve The Plot Vanishes—Faulkner and Woolf...........................................................25

Lecture Thirteen Chapters, Patterns, and Rhythms ........................................................................27

Lecture Fourteen Scene and Summary, Showing and Telling ........................................................29

Lecture Fifteen Subtexts, Motives, and Secrets ...........................................................................31

Lecture Sixteen Dialogue—The Good, the Bad, the Ugly ...........................................................33

Lecture Seventeen Metafiction—Fiction about Fiction ....................................................................35

Lecture Eighteen Adaptation—From Fiction to Film.....................................................................37

Lecture Nineteen Realism Times Four ...........................................................................................39

Lecture Twenty Thumbs Up?—Interpretation and Evaluation.....................................................41

Lecture Twenty-One A Long Short Story—“Runaway” ......................................................................43

Lecture Twenty-Two A Classic Novel— The Age of Innocence ...........................................................45

Lecture Twenty-Three A Baggy Monster— War and Peace ...................................................................47

Lecture Twenty-Four Picking Up the Tools ..........................................................................................49

Timeline ......................................................................................................................................................................51

Glossary ......................................................................................................................................................................53

Biographical Notes .....................................................................................................................................................54

Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................................................61

Credits ........................................................................................................................................................................65

The Art of Reading

Scope:

We all know how to read, but how many of us know how to read well?

This course is designed to encourage the habit of artful reading. Its purpose is not so much to impart information as

to sharpen skills and inspire confidence. By the end of the course, you should be ready to dive into almost any work

of fiction—no matter who the author may be—since you will have gained a deeper understanding of how such

works can be approached and enjoyed.

Throughout the course, we consider big ideas and juicy examples, ranging from the classic to the contemporary and

back again. We not only look at Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy, but also stop to consider the works of Lorrie

Moore and Jhumpa Lahiri. We also bring authors together in surprising new ways, working through comparisons

and contrasts, close reading, and playful questioning.

The course begins by exploring the differences between artful reading and everyday reading. How, we ask, does

reading a short story or novel differ from reading a memo, a recipe, or a newspaper? How does it differ from other

kinds of serious reading? Can you approach a biography or a work of history in the same way that you approach a

work of fiction—and if not, why not?

In the opening lecture, and throughout the entire course, we challenge two common misconceptions: first, that smart,

sensitive readers are born, not made; and second, that sophistication and intelligence are the sworn enemies of

pleasure and delight. From start to finish, it should be clear that the art of reading can be taught—and that mastering

this art is both exciting and rewarding.

After defining the art of reading, we examine the figure of the author. How much do we need to know about an

author before we can begin to appreciate her work? How do authors approach the task of writing? Do they begin

with big themes and big ideas—or with characters, situations, and images? Why are so many authors surprised by

their own creations? Should a writer not know how the story will come out?

Building on such questions, we shift our attention from the author to the narrator or storyteller. (We will also see

why we should not confuse the author with the narrator.) We may remember the difference between first- and third-

person narrators, but we probably have not considered the larger implications of these devices. What are the

advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Why would an author use multiple narrators or create a narrator

who seems inadequate or dishonest?

As we refine our questions and explore the most basic elements of storytelling—characterization, description, style;

the use of irony and ambiguity—we shift our focus to the crucial issue of narrative structure. In these lectures, we

consider two different theories of plot and plotting, contrasting the views of Aristotle with those of the Russian

formalists. Later lectures deepen our understanding of plot and plotting. It has been said, for example, that there are

really only two master plots—“the hero takes a journey” and “a stranger comes to town.” Can that possibly be true?

And why, in any case, do those two basic plots continue to fascinate and satisfy us?

As we wrap up the first half of the course, we apply our new insights to a set of increasingly complex examples. A

lecture on the Sherlock Holmes stories prepares us for a discussion of Ivanhoe and Jane Eyre , and that discussion in

turn gets us ready for an encounter with modernist masterpieces by Faulkner and Woolf. We will see that our new

understanding of the art of reading can help us to make better sense of books that might once have seemed

forbidding—and deepen our enjoyment of more familiar works.

The second half of the course introduces the other major building blocks of fiction: chapters, scenes and summaries,

subtext, and dialogue. This part of the course also features a lecture on cinematic adaptation, taking off from the

familiar and often justified complaint that the movie is never quite as good as the book. As these lectures unfold, we

also consider the rise of highly self-conscious fiction, often called metafiction, focusing on the delightful examples

of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

These later lectures complicate our sense of what it means to read closely and carefully. Indeed, these lectures will

confront us with a number of important theoretical and philosophical questions. Should we expect every work of

fiction to be realistic? And what do we mean by “realism,” anyway? What is the role of the reader? How are readers

affected by their encounters with fictional characters? To what extent are readers merely passive observers, and to

what extent are they active participants in the production of literary meaning?

As the second half of the course nears its end, we take up a second series of increasingly challenging examples,

beginning with a contemporary short story (Alice Munro’s “Runaway”), moving on to a classic novel celebrated for

its emotional restraint (Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence ), and closing with a work notorious for its narrative

excesses (Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace ). By examining works of increasing length and complexity, we see how the

most basic narrative structures and literary devices can be employed, extended, and elaborated. In our discussion of

each example, we also give close, careful attention to small details—shifts in tone, modulations of voice, the

selection and arrangement of words—noting their contribution to the work as a whole.

Thus, although this course raises many complex issues, its largest aim is its simplest and most enduring: to enhance

our enjoyment of literature by making us better, more sensitive, and thus more artful readers.

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