I'm really glad I chose to take English Literature as a course for these two years.

When I was younger, I had this very strict philosophy that books aren't to be analyzed-that literature was meant to be enjoyed, not dissected. That was partially why I was incredibly cynical during my lower years of secondary school studying texts; what's the point of trying to gauge the meaning behind every word? Why can't we leave it be? This probably wasn't even the meaning the author was trying to convey in the first place! Analyzing it just makes it so, so boring and pointless!

Yet the more I studied it, the more I began to enjoy it. And I chose to take it further-and here I am now. And it's probably one of the highlights of my education at the moment. I'm at the point where I go to myself, "You know what? I don't really care if some of the things we discuss are just theories and may not even have grazed the author's mind whilst they were writing this, the fact that we can gauge our own personal interpretations is just as important." And a lot of the time, it made a lot of books a lot more meaningful. I'm not saying that books aren't meaningful if you don't go in depth and pick it apart under a microscope- not at all. I'm just saying that through this process-whether or not the author intended some of these meanings and interpretations- I found a lot to appreciate and it's helped me understand some of the things I read far more. Some texts I almost completely disregarded at first grew massively in significance and meaning as soon as we looked at it more in depth. So call it tedious (and honestly, at times it might be. From an objective standpoint I could see why some people might not enjoy it), but I've grown to really appreciate and love learning literature, especially in a quite analytical way. Obviously analyzing to the letter isn't always helfpul-and you don't need to pick things apart to really appreciate it in depth or have it mean something very important-but I just found that analyzing novels turned out to be not as bad as my younger self thought it would be.

And analytical doesn't mean void of emotion, in fact sometimes it can add to the power and emotion of the piece, if you take a text and look at it criticially from different perspectives.

I feel like reading (and in that sense, films and shows and music too of course) to some extent can be a real empathetic experience-at least from my personal standpoint. You see all these new issues you didn't understand, you learn new things, you see things from different perspectives, you are exposed to emotions and ideas you might not have been before. It really is eye opening sometimes.

I guess I also enjoy the course because it's pretty true the more you read the better you can write. It may not be a linear relationship but there is a connection. Not only can you gain inspiration from what you take in, you can also expose yourself to new styles, new issues, new ways to look at things. And once again, that's not just for books. It can be for almost anything.


Anyways, just a personal little entry. I guess I just appreciate the opportunity to learn, and to do something I really love as an academic subject. To be honest I feel like this is what academics should feel like- this is what education should feel like. It shouldn't feel compulsory like you're being shoved into a classroom and forced to input and output information. It should motivate you and incite at least some form of passion or interest that helps you grow personally. It should be something beneficial to you as a person-not points or grades wise necessarily, but something you can really appreciate and be grateful for.