How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1

This flashcard set covers key concepts from the Crash Course English Literature introduction, focusing on the purpose of reading, literary techniques, and the relationship between author and reader.

Markers of civilization

A problematic idea that defines writing and the ability to read it as the primary indicators of a developed society.

Oral tradition

The practice of passing down great stories and folklore through speech rather than writing, exemplified by Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston.

Mules and Men

A collection of folklore by Zora Neale Hurston that lived in the oral tradition until she wrote it down.

Reading

An act of empathy and an imagining of what it is like to be someone else.

Grammar

A system of language rules, including prepositions, invented to allow for the description of complex experiences like flying through a cloud or jumping over a puddle.

Iambic pentameter

A rhythmic structure used by Shakespeare to help a story have a bigger and better life in the reader's mind.

Authorial Intent

The concept that an author's intended symbolic resonance is irrelevant because the book exists for the benefit of the reader's experience.

Hyperbole

A figurative language technique involving exaggeration to describe internal feelings, such as claiming to be "completely obliterated" by a breakup.

Metaphor

A technique used to describe emotions through comparison, such as describing a broken heart as being "shattered into a million pieces."

Critical Reading

The practice of looking closely at a text to pay attention to the subtle ways an author communicates the full complexity of human experience.

The Green Light (The Great Gatsby)

A symbol representing the stomach-churning mix of yearning and ambition felt when staring at a future that may never be ours.