Now that I’m out of school, I have continued my love for reading, especially the classics. I remember getting a mini lesson on whatever book. I’m not talking about spoiling it, but taught us about the author briefly and what we were about to read. I miss getting important info that I wouldn’t have otherwise understood.
I remember when I read the Great Gatsby for the first time, my high school teacher taught about the what was going on around the time of the book and what possible themes to look for.
by GuardBright6272
42 Comments
I teach literature, so it’s really nice to hear that someone appreciates that kind of contextualization. I think it helps to situate a book in literary and cultural history. You can probably find free lectures for many classic reads on YouTube, and maybe even some for contemporary novels.
The Everyman’s Library editions of the classics are great for this. Pretty editions and have Intros and chronologies of the author’s life and book releases, important events.
This is what I hope to see a tv show about a literature teacher just teaching about books and then it show characters reading the book and relating to it. It would be so cool.
Reading the introduction usually gives you some of this 1😊
This was after I graduated but would sit my butt down for a Great Books marathon on TLC back in the 90s. The Great Gatsby episode is still my favourite. Wish they came out on DVD or streaming. Can still find some on YouTube.
I still do this with my students. I mean I have to do an outline lesson with them, then we read as a group for the first 2 chapters to get them going, get them familiar with the contents, setting, themes etc and then they soar and read on their own.
I don’t, that shit was ass
You might enjoy *A Swim in a Pond in the Rain* by George Saunders. Partly taken from his teaching notes, party about his writing advice, all while very much about the six classic short stories under consideration.
I miss it too and end up doing it on my own a little bit.
Never would I have thought that I would appreciate Shakespeare until I took a class in college on Hamlet. My professor made all the difference. He was so mesmerizing in his description of the time and place I could picture it in my mind vividly. I actually looked forward to that class and think of it to this day and that was 45 years ago.
Agreed. I love history as well as literature and I miss learning about the historical context of novels and the details in them that we probably don’t fully understand without explanation when reading in a modern era.
I hate when my teachers do that. It spoils the entire book.
There are open courses for free that do exactly that. [Link](https://www.edx.org/). You can browse the catalog there.
[deleted]
This is called being an English teacher. Great that you had that experience.
30+ yr English teacher here…
My freshman English class was a real life changer for me. My teacher made illegal copies of A Boys Life by Robert McCammon for us to read in class.
Now, over 30 years later it is still one of my favorite books.
And she had us listen to The phantom of the Opera cast recording while following along with illegal copies of the play.
The story and the music has stayed with me all these years later.
Only play I have seen performed live.
Before starting a book I usually read some of the Wikipedia page on the author and the book if there’s much of one. Helps get an idea of what the content will be like and understand the perspective of the writer.
YouTube? I feel the same way and sometimes I’ll watch a little video breakdown on themes first.
Context is important, but some teachers take it too far. Before we read Animal Farm, we had 1-2 class sessions where we were lectures on that aforementioned context, but also learned the name and personality of every single character and what they represented. Really felt like they were spoiling the book before we even read it.
I’m sure there’s some good podcasts out there that could give you a little laste of that you’re looking for.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Coursera will give you access to lectures on literature from major universities.
It’s called an author study, you can basically conduct it on your own.
I wonder if you’d like: TED Ed (YouTube channel) has a bunch of videos that are “Why You Should Read _______”
In greece we didnt had that intro before reading a book. The literature class where lecturing about small interesting parts of a book, complete dokimia, or poetry.
They never requested to read a book as an assignment, that would be awesome.
On the other hand, i read many books that i learned from school because i find the small stories interesting and i wanted to read the complete story.
Some great books that come to my mind where: The Murderess By Alexandros Papadiamantis and The beggar of Andreas Karkavitsas.
If you are in the US, your local library may have a subscription to Hoopla, which often has the Great Courses bingepass or episodes. There are a lot of lectures on literature taught by professors.
MIT opencourseware might as well.
My favorite classics versions when I want background are Norton Critical Editions.
I would not trust YouTube, etc. for information without proper citation. Even a professor or teachers’ lecture notes have citations. You do not want to go to a bookclub and sound silly because someone you watched online was not accurate.
Read the intro?
Probably my only favorite thing about literature class in school, other than that we were forced to read books, which made me hate reading as a whole. I maybe alone in this but reading and understanding themes is part of the fun I feel many people miss out.
I’m reading Heart of a Samurai with my 5th graders and I put in some historical context lessons and assignments before that really boosted their level of engagement in the long run.
Remember when your teacher would do like an introductory activity that would pertain to the book before you knew you were reading it? 😀
I really like the British Library Tales of the Weird series of short story collections. One of the highlights is the introductions to each author and story, and the overview of the history of the genre. IME a lot of collections of older short stories and essays have these kinds of overviews.
Not just books, but learning about themes and motifs before reading or watching a movie can really elevate an experience. Example is the motif of light and darkness in relation to life, death, and the fear of dying in
The Fountain. I know a lot of folks don’t like that movie but I love it.
I love getting insight on classics like Shakespeare with intros and background. There’s some I’ve read that review the themes afterwards, and helps me understand them a lot better!
I got back into reading/listening to audiobooks a few years ago and with certain book I’ll listen to it once, watch multiple YouTube analysis videos then listen to it again right away with all that added context
Read the introduction! Esp with Penguin classics. But they can contain spoilers if you care about that.
I teach literature and this made my day. I suggest YouTube.
My college American lit professor said that, if you get a book with a preface or an afterword, read it before you read the book. I still do that, or, if it has a reading group guide, I read that. That helps a lot.
I just do it myself. I look it up and read a bit about the author and if it’s just the Wikipedia article, whatever that’s good enough for some background info.
Some books I‘ve read even have a little introduction about exactly these things in the beginning for example Robin Buss translation for The Count of Monte Cristo.
Good thing that you’re an adult and can do your own research now to continue this tradition.
It’s great. The good news is that the internet is full of amazing places to help contextualize a book.
I usually try to buy recently published versions of literature. They usually are edited with notes and introductions. My favorite is Penguin. I also look up the title on Wikipedia and Google the title to browse for analysis or scholarly articles about the title. I love reading on the Kindle app because these tools are readily accessible there.
That’s a great idea for a youtube channel.
I don’t know, as a philology major I am skeptical that this is a good approach. In my experience, when you give too much information about a book beforehand it can turn the reading experience into a frustrating treasure hunt where people don’t really read so much as they look for what they’ve been told is there, and then when they don’t find it they get mad at the book and at their teacher. This might be controversial but I usually advise people to kill their expectations and actively ignore whatever they’ve heard about a book, *especially* if it’s one of the classics. I think the biggest problem people have with books from another time isn’t so much that they don’t understand the context, but rather that they are not approaching the work with an open mind. If you’re reading something from a long time ago I can assure that you’re not reading it just because it was good for the time, if we’re still able to read it it’s because people across several epochs have found something to love about it. Yes it’s great to understand references and it makes us feel very smart, but 9 times out of 10 when people get so hellbent on getting every little nuance about the context they end up missing the most fundamental elements of the story (and sometimes they even miss key plot points too).
A pre-reading activity is valuable before starting any book with a class.