At times, I have a love/hate relationship with the English major. Being an English major teaches me to think, to write, to love, and yearn for truth, beauty, and the good--it's true. But a shocking number of English majors (and I must shamefully admit, that many a time I find myself in this category), live and write midst the thick of thin things; making shallow, meaningless connections between this thing at that thing and oh yeah, that other thing, all while managing not to say anything at all.
...my own, and others', meaningless contributions to the world...
1: Referencing Harry Potter and/or Twilight. This is very bad, and unfortunately, I hear these comparisons at least once a day. I am proud to say I NEVER do this (at least not out loud). When you are reading Mark Twain or Gertrude Stein, or heck, anybody, it is neither cool or credible to say "When Stein starts talking bout colors in that poem, it reminded me about this one time in Harry Potter when Peeves said..." This is a major faux de pas. First off, if you have become an English major just because you read all (or even one) of the Harry Potter books and liked it, please reconsider. You are not doing yourself, or your classmates, any favors. Also, I personally like to forget Mrs. Meyer is a BYU alumnus, and when you reference Edward in connection to Stephen Dedalus it makes me want to cry tears of rage and shame. If such insipid thoughts do pop into your head, banish them immediately and then repent. This is what I do.
2: It is probably a bad idea to present Episode 15 of Ulysses by showing your classmates clips of SNL and Family Guy and then saying that since college students in 90 years won't get the relevance of these clips, we (the 90-year post-Joyce college students) will never get Ulysses. Clever. But really, not nearly clever enough.
3: " The line 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark' reminds me of when in Julius Caesar they say beware the Ides of March, because, like, there is all this ominous foreboding which relates to like how we know things are real, but like don't at the same time, and what I think Shakespeare is, well you know, trying to do, is just be really meaningful here."
4: No, I would not like to Jabberwocky that hymn.
5: Comparisons between Faulkner and Glee may exist in abundance, but I try to keep them to myself.
6: Sometimes a lot of love (or hate) will happen between you and a specific author or piece. For example, I have a lot love for a Mr. John Keats and a Mrs. Sylvia Plath and a lotta hate for a Mr. Daniel Defoe*, but I cannot express these sentiments in an academic setting without critical reasoning to back up these innate sentiments. Obviously, I endorse the feeling of these feelings, but I cannot condone their public expression in statements like: "I just really liked this book" or "I don't know about historical context, I just wanted to say this book made me so mad!" or "This poem sucks." These statements are boring, if you're not going to, or can't, elaborate, I would prefer not to hear it at all.
* In a blogging setting, it is perfectly acceptable to make superlative statements i.e. I hate Daniel Defoe, without justification. Ha!
Enough hate.
If you take anything away from this blog post, let it be that baby elephants and small children are adorable, and that they kind of, you know, remind me of literature and stuff.
2 comments:
Sometimes I, like, wonder if we're even, like, at a university.
Uh, watever. You totally forgot about the National Enquirer. There is like, SO MUCH stuff you can connect to like, ya know, books and stuff, in there. Duh.
I'm with you on the elephants and small children thing though. :)
Post a Comment