so I may switch to pre-med

[Irock]

One of the reasons you read criticism is the exercise of crawling into someone's skin and seeing the world from their perspective. You read Shakespeare from a feminist perspective and then write about it in order to demonstrate that you understand the perspective of a feminist writer. That's why a brief biography is useful, because we ARE what we've experienced, and our perspective and our writing is a result of those experiences - the background may not be as important as what was actually written, but nothing and no one exists "in-and-of itself;" without context, we don't exist, and nothing we door write makes sense.

If you can't adopt another person's perspective, and see the world the way they might have seen it - even if you think that person is a tool - then how are you ever going to be able to write good fiction characters?

[Irock]

Also, read The Decay of Lying by Oscar Wilde. It's a play, not an essay, but it's an essay within a play. It's also hilarious, but really only half-joking. It's all about artistic criticism, and China doesn't exist. I don't know if it'll change your mind about anything, but it's really light summer reading.

Also, you're not alone in your opinion; it's only relatively recently that criticism (as opposed to literature) has taken such a large role in the study of English. When I started at UTA in 97 there wasn't a required class specifically on criticism, now there are two. Things shift, pendulum, blah blah. I'd probably be equally happy studying literature, because it's what I enjoy, but criticism really has a lot to offer.

[sam]

I can't argue with studying criticism, or at least critical methodology, if you are a literature major. It just seems like that approach takes you further from where the work comes from. At some point we gave up believing that you can ever truly understand an author's process or intent. Analysis of them, their parents, the historical setting, etc. It goes on and on but what do you really know? If you haven't travelled the same terrain, emotionally or geographically or whatever, then how can you possibly have a point of reference for how their views and perceptions shape their work?

Anyway, you can keep taking classes all over the place until something starts to bother you at night and you start opening your textbooks instead of sleeping or going out. If that doesn't happen, you can probably piece together an interdisciplinary bs, not a bit less useless than an literature degree.

[James]

I don't think the whole idea of "criticism" being just part of literature, but it permeates pretty much everything. My biggest example of this was my Music History classes, where the professors would babble on and on about the greatness of the composer's achievements, but trying to do so in much of a vacuum as possible. A lot of these guys were the rock stars of their time, and off chasing booze, drugs, women, men, hedonism, recklesness, etc...but to these professors, you'd think they were saints. It's very clinical. And the whole idea of interpretation of someone else's ideas without expansion on them is pretty dull. The idea of criticism itself should incorporate these other peripheral circumstances, but they do not. This, however, is a fault of the criticiser and not criticism itself.


The issue you will have, Dalya, is that criticism will come in every field. You will find it in medicine perhaps ten fold because of all of the various subjects involved.

Plus, it's just some of the BS you have to put up with in this life.

[Rubbs]

academics are a conduit between the important and unimportant. But not the end goal.

[Dalya]

What really bothers me is the wordiness of it. Most critical essays could be summed up in 3 paragraphs, but the critics go on and on and on... plus, most of them are not the greatest writers (and are thus critics) which means 1 in 2 essays has exessive use of adjectives and syllables.

I don't mind criticism in other fields. In my psychology class, I really enjoyed it. Because you're critiquing something that SHOULD be critiqued - a psychological study and conclusion that is controversial. Things like that need to be critiqued to point out if they are even valid. Literature can't be invalid. Whether or not Shakespeare hated women doesn't change what he wrote. Authorial intent doesn't change anything. Even if the author is in the room saying what his poem means, you can still interpret it another way. Writing is an art, not a science, which means it shouldn't (in my opinion) be examined as if it's a specimin. Once the words are on the page, they exist on their own and don't need the author anymore.

Maybe it's just the way my mind works, but when I read a book I already read it from different perspectives and make notes of things like that in my mind. But I enjoy interpreting the book on its own merit, without it having to be explained to me. Footnotes are great, especially for period novels or translated works, but for the most part I could care less about the author. If I were interested in a particular author, then I might research him or her, but I don't think it should be required.

Reading a novel puts you in someone else's shoes. Reading someone's opinion about the novel takes away the magic that the novel had. It turns it into this cold, scientific study.

[Irock]

Reading a novel puts you in someone else's shoes. Reading someone's opinion about the novel takes away the magic that the novel had. It turns it into this cold, scientific study.

That is just - so - not - true. If it were, what would be the point of ever discussing art at all?
If you think you can get everything out of a work on your own, what are you trying to get out of school? No one should be trying to tell you what you should or shouldn't see in a work, just giving you tools you can use to see MORE than you would on your own.
No class I've ever taken has put a primary focus on authorial intent, but it's sometimes useful to have insight into what the author intended, even if the work means something different to you. But I'd like to point out that the fact that you don't think authorial intent is important is in and of itself a theory of criticism.

[Dalya]

I think it's a lot more interesting to discuss the work in class with my peers than to read essays about it. Discussion is a lot more interesting and free than a one-sided debate in written form.

This is why I don't want to major in literature. This just annoys the crap out of me. I see the merit in reading those essays before you write a thesis or if you are just really into an author/work, but you don't need to read and write essays about every novel you ever read. You don't need to read all that extra crap to appreciate the novel. I'm sorry, but you don't. It may further expand your perspective, but you don't NEED it and I resent that it is forced on me.

Although I don't think it's all that interesting to discuss novels in the first place. So maybe I'm just not meant to be a lit major.