Learn Hardcore French: Le professeur montre comment une auteure de littérature et de poésie peut aider à comprendre les émotions les plus fragiles. - The teacher shows how a literature and poetry author can help people understand the most fragile emotions.

un auteur: grammatically masculine; traditionally used for both men and women, especially in older or more conservative usage.
une auteure: a feminine form, common in Canada and also used in some parts of the Francophone world; some style guides accept it.
une autrice: another feminine form that has become more and more common in France; many modern French style guides now recommend autrice.

So the sentence chooses une auteure to make it clear the writer is female, and to avoid using the masculine un auteur as a “neutral” form. The exact choice (auteure vs autrice) is partly a question of region, register, and personal preference.

What does de littérature et de poésie mean, and why is it de and not de la?

une auteure de littérature et de poésie literally means “an author of literature and poetry” = “a literary and poetry writer”.

Here de is used in a general, classificatory way, to indicate type or field:

un professeur de mathématiques – a math teacher
un joueur de tennis – a tennis player
une auteure de littérature et de poésie – an author in the fields of literature and poetry

If you said de la littérature et de la poésie, it would sound a bit heavier and more concrete, as if referring to particular, countable bodies of work, rather than her general area of writing. The shorter de littérature et de poésie is the natural idiomatic choice to describe her specialization.

Why not say en littérature et en poésie instead of de littérature et de poésie?

en is more often used for:

fields of study or competence:
- être spécialiste en littérature – be a specialist in literature
- un cours en philosophie – a course in philosophy

de is more natural when you label someone’s role or type of activity:

un auteur de romans policiers – a crime-novel writer
un chanteur de rock – a rock singer
une auteure de littérature et de poésie – a writer of literature and poetry

en littérature et en poésie could work in some contexts (e.g. spécialiste en littérature et en poésie), but with auteure, de is the idiomatic preposition.

Who is the subject of peut aider? Is it the professor or the author?

The subject of peut aider is une auteure de littérature et de poésie.

The structure is:

Le professeur montre
→ main clause, subject: Le professeur
comment une auteure de littérature et de poésie peut aider à comprendre...
→ subordinate clause introduced by comment, with its own subject: une auteure

So the professor is showing/explaining how an author can help; it is not that “the professor can help.”

Why is it aider à comprendre and not just aider comprendre?

In French, when aider is followed by another verb in the infinitive, the standard structure is:

aider à + infinitive

For example:

aider à faire ses devoirs – to help (someone) do their homework
aider à résoudre un problème – to help solve a problem
peut aider à comprendre – can help (to) understand

You can sometimes find aider + infinitive without à, but:

it’s less common,
it tends to sound a bit more formal/literary or old-fashioned,
and many grammars treat aider à + infinitif as the default, especially in contemporary everyday French.

So peut aider à comprendre is the normal, natural phrasing.

Where is the “us” or “people” in peut aider à comprendre? Who is doing the understanding?

French often leaves this generic “understander” implicit.

peut aider à comprendre les émotions
literally: “can help to understand emotions”

The implied subject of comprendre is a general “we/people/one”, similar to English:

“can help (us/people) understand the most fragile emotions”

If you wanted to make it explicit, you could say:

peut nous aider à comprendre – can help us understand
peut aider les gens à comprendre – can help people understand

But in this kind of general statement, French very often omits that element.

Why is it montre comment and not montre que?

montrer que introduces a fact: “shows that …”
- Le professeur montre que la poésie est importante. – The teacher shows that poetry is important.
montrer comment introduces a process or manner: “shows how …”
- Le professeur montre comment une auteure... peut aider... – The teacher shows how an author can help...

Here, the focus is on the way literature and poetry help us understand fragile emotions—the mechanism, method, or process—so comment (“how”) is the appropriate conjunction.

Why is it les émotions les plus fragiles and not les plus fragiles émotions?

French superlatives with adjectives normally follow this pattern:

definite article + noun + definite article + plus/moins + adjective

So:

les émotions les plus fragiles – literally “the emotions the most fragile” = “the most fragile emotions”
les questions les plus importantes – the most important questions
les œuvres les plus connues – the best-known works

Putting the adjective in front (les plus fragiles émotions) is possible but:

it sounds literary/poetic or old-fashioned,
it’s much less common in normal prose.

So les émotions les plus fragiles is the standard modern word order.

Why is fragiles plural, and how does agreement work here?

émotions is:

feminine,
plural.

Adjectives in French agree in gender and number with the noun they describe, so:

singular feminine: fragile
- une émotion fragile
plural feminine: fragiles
- des émotions fragiles
- les émotions les plus fragiles

So fragiles has an -s to match the plural noun émotions. (The feminine is not visible here because the masculine plural form is also fragiles; but the agreement rule still applies.)

Why is it les émotions and not des émotions?

Using les here gives a more general, almost abstract meaning:

les émotions les plus fragiles – “the most fragile emotions” in general; we’re talking about this whole category of emotions, not some specific set.

If you said des émotions fragiles, it would sound like:

“(some) fragile emotions” – a subset, more concrete and less general.

The sentence is making a general statement about human emotions and how literature/poetry can help us understand the most delicate kinds of emotions. For this kind of general, generic reference, French very often uses the definite article le / la / les.

Could we say peut aider à mieux comprendre? What would change?

Yes:

peut aider à comprendre les émotions les plus fragiles
peut aider à mieux comprendre les émotions les plus fragiles

Both are correct. Adding mieux (“better”) changes the nuance:

without mieux: “can help (us) understand the most fragile emotions” – understanding vs not understanding.
with mieux: “can help (us) better understand the most fragile emotions” – suggests we already understand them a bit, and literature/poetry deepens or improves that understanding.

So mieux adds the idea of improvement rather than simple access.

Is there any difference in meaning between Le professeur montre and Le professeur explique here?

Both verbs could work, but they’re not identical:

montrer – to show, demonstrate, make something evident (often with examples, texts, behavior, etc.).
expliquer – to explain, clarify by giving reasons or definitions.

In a classroom or lecture-type context:

Le professeur montre comment...
suggests the teacher is demonstrating with examples (maybe by analyzing a poem, reading a passage, etc.).
Le professeur explique comment...
tilts more toward giving a verbal explanation or theory of how this works.

The sentence chooses montre to emphasize demonstration (through concrete literary examples) rather than purely abstract explanation.