6. Foster talks about the “symbolic level.” How does this inform the kind of reading professors
(and AP Lit. students) do? How does one work to read in this manner? What does it require of us
as readers?
(and AP Lit. students) do? How does one work to read in this manner? What does it require of us
as readers?
The symbolic level is a type of art that takes focus and determination to master, and only those willing to actually fully understand a text will completely do so. In a sense, the symbolic level is how a symbol is used and in the manner that its used in. Symbolism is a creative outlet found in everything that you see, and it plays an important role in writing; all in all, humans use and factor out symbolism without even knowing that they are doing so. The art of symbolism is a complicated mechanism that is regarded by the context that the author writes in and how the reader takes it. Foster writes, “We bring an individual history to our reading, a mix of previous readings, to be sure, but also a history that includes, but is not limited to, educational attainment, gender, race, class, faith, social involvement, and philosophical inclination. The factors will inevitably influence what we understanding our reading, and nowhere is this individuality clearer than in the matter of symbolism” (110.) Here the author is showing the insight about symbolism and how it comes to be: it is all in the sense of the reader and how they take the linguistic outlook of the author. Every symbol, though rooted around a central idea, holds a different meaning within a person depending on how they take it and the personal history that they place with it; for example, the author writes about the rivers and the different ideas that each text held around them. While reading about the authors justification, it made sense as to why the river meant something different in each text by focusing on the history of the characters and relating the personal history of myself, the reader. AP students must work harder to understand the meaning behind the text, taking in any analytical clues behind the words to fully understand the text at hand so that they can have the same outcome and outlook that a professor would have.
Symbolism is a tricky and obscure sort of thing. I like the image of a cone of light. That a thing can mean a range of things to add depth and richness to a work and our experience with it. Often a symbol is not really just one thing, but a wealth of many possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI like how you refer to symbolism as an art because I defiantly would agree that it is. Implementing symbolism is in a piece of text, or art work seems to me like art within art. Symbolism itself is art because one symbol can turn out to mean a range of things which adds a certain level of complexity and of course ambiguity to the piece of work as a whole. Symbols allow for open interpretation, but like you said students often have to use a range of clues and they have to be prepared to ask questions, and step into the writer's shoes to figure out what they could have been trying to convey. This process can be hard and in the end we would like one definite answer to what it could mean when in fact, there are so many different ones and they could all be correct.
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