How to read Imaginative Literature?

The better you can reflectively discern the causes of your pleasure in reading fiction or poetry, the nearer you will come to knowing the artistic virtues in the literary work itself.

Words & Phrases

1.embark on : embark on/ upon sth: to start sth, especially sth new, difficult, or exciting.

                           With the ultimate resolution, I embark on a second pursuit of graduate examination.

2. Live through: to experience difficult or dangerous conditions SYN: endure

                         It is out of imagination what the Chinese soldiers lived through during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

3. Corollary: sth that is the direct result of sth else    corollary of/to

                         Is social inequality the inevitable corollary of economic freedom?

4. Injunction: ( formal) a piece of advice or an order from someone in authority

How not to read Imaginative Literature?

Expository and Imaginative literature are different from each other on one trying to convey knowledge and the other trying to communicate an experience itself. Therefore we need to read them distinctly. As for the suggestion on how to read Imaginative Literature, there are three nagative injunctions.

A. Don't try to resist the effect that a work of Imaginative Literature has on you.

B. Don't look for terms, propositions, and arguments in Imaginative Literature.

C. Don't criticize fiction by the standard of truth and consistency that properly apply to communication of knowledge.

When reading a story,we let it act on us. We must allow it to move us, we must let it do whatever work it wants to do on us. We must somehow make ourselves open to it.

General rules for reading Imaginative Literature

Structure, interpretive and critical are the three groups of rules.

As for the structure, you must judge the type of the Imaginative Literature, conclude the unity of the book you are reading and know the internal connection among several parts.

Considering the interpretive, episodes, incidents, characters and their thoughts, speeches, feelings and actions form the imaginative world. You will see the terms in propositions. Fully apprehending the Imaginative world,you will become a part of the world, feel and act like the characters.

Saying the critical, you need to follow one maxim: don't criticize imaginative writing until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.

感悟 & Summary

小說成功地將我從看著書本就頭疼變為可以一動不動地看18個小時的書本愛好者，它帶給我最美好的回憶，至今仍然是內心的一片淨土。而作者提到的Imaginative Literature 包含了小說，戲劇和詩歌。小說可以是一件很私人的事情，但是入果能找到合理的方式將心中所感與他人分享，能夠有一種尺度衡量自己對作者所述的理解的程度，也是對自己思維的開拓。在閱讀之前避免先入為主的偏見，閱讀的時候用心感受已達到入境，閱讀小說，詩歌等的美感也就漸漸顯現。

Becoming one part of the imaginative world, one may be able to escape from the reality for a moment to cure your sadness or calm down the happiness. You may cry as the tears drop down the hero ' eyes, you may forget the angry things while laughing at the embarrassing things in the story. You can also express your great ambition in reading poems from Du fu. Let the words in a story, a poem, a drama act on you. Imaginative Literature make life more colorful and hopeful.