How to Read Literature Like a Professor - What I've Learned (Chapters 1-9)

As I started reading Catch-22, I found it quite hard to remember all the techniques that were taught in How to Read Literature like a Professor. So, in order to be able to remember the aspects of a story that I should be looking for in order to analyze it well, I organized the tricks into easy, memorable one-liners (or multi-liners) that I can print for later reference.

1. QUESTS: Quests are used for attaining self-knowledge and/or self-improvement, usually by novices/naïve people.
2. MEALS: Meals, which symbolize camaraderie, usually reflect the dynamics/relationships of the people sharing the meal.
3. VAMPIRES: Anything that takes advantage of someone and/or sucks the life of someone is a symbolic vampire. Real vampires, on the other hand, usually symbolize something subliminal, such as sex.
4. SONNETS: Don’t just look at the content of the poem; look at how it looks like visually—it might provide clues as to the meaning the poem conveys.
5. IT PROBABLY CAME FROM SOMEWHERE: No work of literature is wholly original—the story you’re reading, or a character, is probably a derivative of some other story.
6. SHAKESPEARE: …is everywhere! From the plots to the famous one-liners. His ubiquity gives your literature authority, in a way that since everyone knows Shakespeare one way or another they’re going to get what you’re meaning.
7. BIBLE: …is also everywhere—in Western literature, at least. So, stack up your knowledge of the Scriptures, because Biblical references are bound to be everywhere.
8. HANSEL&GRETEL: …is also everywhere. Everyone knows them because everyone was taught about them when they were once kids.
9. MYTHS: There’s bound to be heavy references to Greek, Roman, or other kinds of Euro- or American- myths somewhere in literature. Be on the lookout.