By acknowledging interpretive theories of the past, Brittan provides a proper historical frame of reference in which today's student can better understand figurative language in poetry.

Dealing with poetry is frequently problematic for the university teacher and student: although undergraduates are usually responsive to discussions about drama and prose, poetry often silences the classroom. Unless a poem provides references easily applicable to their own lives, many students feel they can’t relate to the piece and are stymied. In particular, allegorical poetry produces tensions among the desire to find the meanings of the poet’s symbolism, the fear of voicing a "wrong" interpretation, and a natural objection to perceived restrictions on interpretive freedom. Poetry, Symbol, and Allegory eases that dilemma by providing a historical overview of theories of interpretation as they apply to symbol and allegory in poetry, thereby reclaiming valuable and useful methods of analyzing poems. Beginning with Plato and Aristotle, Simon Brittan moves from classical theory to the lesser-known medieval exegetical theories of such notables as Augustine, Aquinas, and Origen; addresses theory pertaining to Renaissance Italy and Dante, English theory of the Middle Ages, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Romantic period; and concludes by weighing the poetry of T. E. Hulme, T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound on the larger historical scale of literary theory. By acknowledging interpretive theories of the past, Brittan provides a proper historical frame of reference in which today’s student can better understand figurative language in poetry. Simon Brittan is an independent scholar who divides his time between England and Michigan. He has taught at the University of East Anglia and in the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and written for Renaissance Forum, the Times Literary Supplement, and Gravesiana.

Structures of Appearing: Allegory and the Work of Literature is an interdisciplinary study that revises the history of allegory through a phenomenological approach. The book also takes on the history of aesthetics as an ideology that has long subjugated literature (and art generally) to criteria of judgment that are philosophical rather than literary.

Thoroughly revised and expanded for a new generation of readers, this classic guide to enjoying literature to its fullest—a lively, enlightening, and entertaining introduction to a diverse range of writing and literary devices that enrich these works, including symbols, themes, and contexts—teaches you how to make your everyday reading experience richer and more rewarding. While books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings beneath the surface. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the practiced analytical eye—and the literary codes—of a college professor. What does it mean when a protagonist is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he’s drenched in a sudden rain shower? Thomas C. Foster provides answers to these questions as he explores every aspect of fiction, from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form. Offering a broad overview of literature—a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower—he shows us how to make our reading experience more intellectually satisfying and fun. The world, and curricula, have changed. This third edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect those changes, and features new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, as well as fresh teaching points Foster has developed over the past decade. Foster updates the books he discusses to include more diverse, inclusive, and modern works, such as Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give; Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven; Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere; Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X; Helen Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox and Boy, Snow, Bird; Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street; Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God; Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet; Madeline Miller’s Circe; Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls; and Tahereh Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea.