Reluctant, eh?
Come on. What's to be scared of? Scared that you won't like it? Scared that you won't be good at it? Scared you will be lost in the Jargon? Scared that you may lose whatever it is that allows you to just enjoy a book? Scared that never again will you be able to read a book without applying to it your newly learned skills of criticism, effectively making every reading a chore instead of a joy?
Don't worry. It's ok. You'll probably like it. You may not like the class you're most likely taking right now, but that's not real literary criticism, it's a class. Real lit. crit. is finding meaning in literature, and then talking and writing about what you've found. And that is fun.
Also, you'll probably be good at it. When you set your mind to something you get good at it. If you decide that lit. crit. is worth your time and energy then you will do what it takes to get good at it. You may decide that lit. crit. is not something you want to dedicate much time to. That is fine. We can't all spend our days talking and writing about literature. It may be nice for a week or so, but then we'd run out of food, and die.
So if you decide that lit crit isn't for you, go on. Live your life, but remember us up here in this ivory tower of Academia. And if it's not too much trouble, every once in a while, if you could spare some sandwiches or something...we'd appreciate it.
A note on the Jargon. The jargon really sucks. I hate it. But really, some of them have got to the point where that's how they really think. Pity them. Attempt to decipher what they are saying, because sometimes they have some really valuable things to say. But don't fall into the same traps that they did. We've already lost too many.
And finally, learning literary criticism won't wreck your future enjoyment of reading. Knowledge of literary criticism merely gives you more options when you choose to read literature critically. When you read without knowledge of the various schools of lit. crit. and you think about what it means, you are still using literary criticism. It's just that the tools you use and the ideology that you are coming from is so ingrained that it seems natural. You will still have that "natural" way of looking at literature. But you may find that it fits into a school of lit.crit. and it has a name. You may find that it is a mix of different schools. That's fine too. You are in no way restricted. If you can successfully mix schools, by all means do so. And with all the other schools you are going to learn, you will find there are many other ways to think about literature, and that's pretty neat.
Thinking differently. People want to think differently all the time. Many people ruin their lives with drugs so they can think differently. We don't need drugs. We can just switch schools of literary criticism. I need another hit of Marxism, I think.
In closing. Literary criticism is good. It won't bite. You're going to be fine. You look great. Let's go.
www.captiveape.com
3.15.2002