This semester in our Entry to English Studies course -- an entry course like no other -- we used digital platforms to enhance our study of literature. I'll say it right now: this course proved me wrong in a myriad of ways. Kind of a negative overarching theme, right? I actually don't think so. In this blog post, I want to illustrate the ways that my personal literary identity changed, or rather, expanded in order to let the digital age (and other things that used to bore me) in. I will explore my progress in terms of traditional ways to understand literature and in terms of the future of literary studies.
Traditional Literature Studies
The main change I see in myself in reference to traditional literary study is being more open to subject matter and genres that I used to think didn't hold much relevance in my personal life. A great example of this is my personal study of the novel Heart of Darkness. I was not initially thrilled to learn that we would be studying Heart of Darkness, because the first time I read that novel, I just wasn't impressed. I was a senior in AP Literature, I was stressed about college applications, and I absolutely loathed the movie Apocalypse Now. However, this semester, as we studied the novel while also studying different literary theories, and reading other students' interpretations of the novel based on Marxism, reader response theory, cultural studies, etc. spiked my interest, and I began to see the novel as more of a vehicle for Joseph Conrad to make many different statements about society, etc. It was fascinating for me to see all of the different lenses by which we could interpret Heart of Darkness, and I realized that the novel was quite interesting to me when I read it through the lens of feminist literary criticism. Reading about different literary theories opened my eyes to the critical conversations that are already going on about novels, epic poems, and more. Critics are constantly finding more things to be said about books and poems that were written years ago, and they, along with their theories, help me to see how these things are relevant in my own life. Just because I don't personally enjoy a certain author's style doesn't mean that his or her work doesn't deserve my attention. More examples of this kind of enlightenment occurred when we analyzed the York Mystery Plays, wrote our own sonnets, and more.
