<p>I don't like literature classes, but I'm taking a lit class to fullfill my literature requirements. I don't like the class because I don't "get" it. I feel like all the arguments and analysis in lecture is so far fetched, stretched, BS. For example, we're reading a children's book, yet somehow simple descriptions are supposedly a metaphor for something I think is completely unrelated. Everything just seems so imaginary, unrelated, and overly analyzed that its ridiculous. I just don't buy any of it. And we have to write a paper too, and I don't know how to approach it except for elaborate BS. Anyways, I just wanted to rant, and see what you're guys opinion is on this. Mabye someone can help me see the light?</p>
<p>I frankly agree with it. I do believe that books have very simple meanings built in and the authors intentionally put them in there. But the ridiculous, huge analyses that go into some mystical idea the entire book is somehow based upon is complete BS to me and I frankly see no purpose in analyzing literature “for my own benefit”.</p>
<p>Writers do not write with the intent of placing so many little literary details, with a few exceptions. But that is what makes great works great. They are unintentionally or even subconsciously placed within the writing. </p>
<p>This. All of my this. My English teacher this year nearly makes me hysterical. Beowulf, for example. It’s pretty old and I thought it had a semi-silly plot, but it was kinda cool. Then there she goes on the board doing god knows what to the first paragraph. “Lots of words start with S here. Therefore snakes. Therefore evil. Therefore tone shift. Therefore Grendel is actually a little human.” No. No. No. This bloody story is about a thousand years old. Don’t overthink it! </p>
<p>So now Beowulf is ruined for me. Now all I can do is sit and wait as Siddhartha and Things Fall Apart, which I actually liked, are ruined too. Good thing I loathed Heart of Darkness.</p>
<p>That’s all English is. Write elaborate, sophisticated crap. Maybe I just don’t have a soul. Maybe life is a video game and I minmaxed mathematical intelligence for literary intelligence before birth. The point is that I don’t see anything, and boy am I glad I’m not alone.</p>
<p>I’ve seriously used much more ideas from TV tropes than what I “learned” in my last 7 years of literature studies. </p>
<p>Houston… we have… consensus.</p>
<p>Literature is great. Literary analysis is a waste of time. This came into being because Ph.D programs ran out of new things to say, and the Ph.D candidates were required to do original work. Just my humble opinion. It could be more sinister than that.</p>
<p>@Godot17 … English did not used to be so horrid. The analysis thing ruined the whole field.</p>
<p>I agree with you. I’ve never really liked literary analysis. I’ll admit that my teacher and other people in my classes have interesting perspectives on books but I’m not always sure if every perspective is what the author intended for readers to see. It’s all about perspective though. If you set your mind to finding a certain pattern or analysis in the book, then you will find it, whether or not the author meant that pattern or other people understand you. Analysis ruins the enjoyment of a book though. </p>
<p>While I agree that authors don’t always intentionally put things in books, I actually like literary analysis. I think that’s the beauty of literature and studying it. I like how it can mean something special to each individual. </p>
<p>I’m in the writing and rhetoric field, and everything is much more clear-cut. In all sincerity, I kind of hate it. There’s no room for imagination, no room for real, unbiased opinion; there’s no room for me to truly write creatively. </p>
<p>While some people are wired to see the flaws of literary analysis, some can also utilize its openness. It’s all a matter of perspective and of switching lenses. Sometimes you just need to find the right pair to see things in the “literary analysis” way! 
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<p>I love being a lit major. I’m going to grad school to be an English teacher. If a teacher is good, there will be less lecturing and “this means X, that means Y” but instead, plenty of open discussion. What do YOU see in the book? What are you getting out of it? What stands out to you, and let’s talk about that. While for some works, we might not know exactly what the author intended with a certain element, we can still talk about it and what it shows us as readers. And I’m not going to say that every single thing a professor has said is certainly true, but just because you don’t “see” it doesn’t mean it has no merit or isn’t worth examining. </p>
<p>There’s plenty to say about children’s lit-- I’m assuming you mean Mary Poppins and Peter Pan, not picture books for five year olds. Especially at certain times in history, it serves a purpose greater than what people give it credit for. It should be analyzed in the context of its time and society. I’ve also listened to lectures on adolescent lit. It’s not about Suzanne Collins writing phd level works, but about what we can get out of it.</p>
<p>it’s fun for me to make ambitious and daring claims. if i think about something for long enough usually i can come up with an “interesting” interpretation that tries to be dazzling in how its presented. but what i’m bad at is explaining and supporting the idea. like how do you get 2-4 pages from one good idea, i’m a little stumped by that. and besides the idea, which is fun to me to come up with, i find the rest of it (and its only 2 pages sometimes for crying out loud, but still it seems like an impossible length to reach at times) the rest is tedious and laborious for me. i can’t get any of my ideas to grow into essays very naturally most of the time.</p>
<p>but that’s the angle i come at this literary analysis stuff from. i try to say the opposite of what everyone else is going to say. or if some kids are going to make the points im making, im going to make them more viciously, im going to say it more forcefully and with less reservations. maybe not as well, maybe not as clearly, but i’m not aiming for that, i’m aiming for impact. if there is no obvious contrarian view to seize hold of, then i’ll try to find something to write about no one would think to write about, like something that seems boring at first that there’s not enough to make an essay out of, that’s what i’ll take and turn into a full length essay or try to. my essay will be about the mentions of the landscape in the novel, or the colors that are use to describe things. you thought there was nothing to that? you were WRONG. and ill convince you of what it all means and its significance.</p>
<p>i got a pretty good reception sometimes. some teachers really gave my essays a lot of praise. just as a freshman in high school at this college prep school for smart kids that i didn’t think i belonged among, the english teacher asked me to come to his office before he handed me back my essay, he wanted to talk to me. and when he did, he impressed on me how much he liked my essay. he also gave me good criticism that i never forgot about the style of my writing. it was what i chose to write about more than how i said anything that he liked. and even when all my other essays were just decent compared to that, he still gave me an A in his class in the end. so from early on i got good feedback for some of my “strange” essays and that basically gave me the confidence to continue to write ones like that and go in that direction. it went okay for awhile but then i started failing english classes because some of my teachers hated them and how i didn’t follow the rules. then i majored in math to avoid ever having to write an essay again, but i still i have some good memories of it, even though it was often really challenging for me to get an essay out of my ideas. </p>
<p>@above; Exactly, I can ramble on with biology and thermodynamics explaining some of my book “theories.”
The migrating ducks in Catcher in the Rye represent continuity, not change–they in fact are migrating in order to maintain their body temperature (and more along these lines with other BS examples to support my argument). Ahh, I love in high school when I got to critique other’s papers saying their theories are wrong with some random science BS / the authors’ scientifically inaccurate descriptions that make a good analysis, or whatnot.
Tangental disgust about essays: the SAT had similar logical loopholes that made one side of the argument equivalent to the other side of the argument, kind of ruined my score a little.</p>
<p>Yup, this is why I am an engineer that actually solves problems.
There is probably more art in circuit analysis than literary analysis. Circuit schematics themselves are an artistic creation that we have made an are so logically beautiful. Spend time coming up with circuits I’ve never seen before, think up ways this type of configuration might be useful, and start hammering away with calculations solving problems one method and then another method and so on. <3</p>
<p>Well, logical and clear-cut is one way of thinking and operating, and abstract and “out there” is another way. As humans, we love to assign meanings to things. Someone at some point in time assigned meaning to mathematical terms and concepts, and with literary analysis, it’s just not as definitive and tangible. People like finding their own meanings in literature, and when you have to write pages of support, you’re practicing a certain kind of critical thinking. </p>
<p>It takes all kinds of things and views to make the world tick, so I appreciate both. You need opposites to bring balance and equilibrium to things, and without darkness, there would be no light. </p>
<p>@harvestmoon:
Yeah, I can make a case where mathematics is quite beautiful and our school systems kind of ruined the image that it gets (we have forced upon students way too many rules etc to take it from abstraction). But I’ll agree with your opinion, I’m just not focused on appreciating certain things because one topic is enough for itself with the time I have to gain mastery.
Additon: (IDK, engineering thinking focuses on a specific problems / creative solutions, often limited to what is practical and the resources we have so I find it hard to work on the literary side, but I can go for aesthetics)</p>