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Anonymous
How do you read literature? 2017-05-28 05:44:00 Post No. 9564904
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How do you read literature? 2017-05-28 05:44:00 Post No. 9564904
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With the rise of sensible political beliefs perhaps you all can actually help me.
How exactly do you take something valuable from capital-L Literature?
I'm an English major, getting my MA right now. It's all useless. The way I've been told to read literature is utter bullshit. It's all (((critical theory))) and psychoanalytic nonsense. How did people read literature before all this? Did they appreciate it aesthetically? Is there some conversation happening in it I'm not aware of?
To be honest with you when I read literature I get next to nothing from it. I've taken two Chaucer classes at this point and it just doesn't leave me fascinated. I mean I understand all the mechanics of what is going on, cultural context, I understand what Chaucer is doing poetically, but I'm not prepared to sit here right now and tell you that it's great and awesome.
How do I come to find literature awesome? I don't want to extract from Shakespeare about how whites are oppressive or any of that BS. I want to read literature and find it to be great. How do I do that?
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How did you make it all the way to your MA if you don't enjoy reading?
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>>9564904
>english major ignorant of the power of language
Why am I not surprised
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>How did people read literature before all this
Haven't you read any old literary criticism? Like Poetics or something like that?
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Why bother with criticism at all? If you know like-minded people that also read, why not develop your tastes that way? If it's for anything beyond knowing what to read, why do it? You'll have opinions on books with or without critical theory
Some of the greatest authors didn't write more than a sentence on some of the books that inspired them. Sometimes, "I enjoyed it" is enough
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Honestly literature isn't all that great. Go watch a Bergman film or something and once you remember why you like art you can come back to literature.
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I feel like I've been fucking damaged from all this nonsense. They've drilled in my mind that you're supposed to treat texts as if they have no authors, that there is no "objective meaning," all this stuff. They'v been telling me this for the past 5 years and I haven't heard the alternative. I feel brainwashed.
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>>9564974
>right wing
>can't think for himself or read on his own
I'm shocked.
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>>9564995
>no reading comprehension
>deliberately misunderstand to insult
whew
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>>9564993
The alternative is obviously to try to discern the author's intention by looking at his/her background and context. Seems a bit silly to just use one method though, no reason you can't look at a text from several different angles. Give Poetics a try and see if it does anything for you.
Or maybe you're just burnt-out from studying literature for so long?
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