English majory reflections

[icepixie]

I realized today what was missing from the English classes here: they have very little concept of the close reading. All the discussion, such as it is, rests on very broad, general topics. Nobody quotes the book or even points to passages to back up their point. Strangely, just after I realized this, Mack decided to have our one and only close reading in Satire, and the first I've seen here. It was actually interesting, for the first time all year. Too bad it was the last class.

See, Kenyon's English department is built on this type of criticism, as it's the kind developed and espoused by our most famous professor, John Crowe Ransom. (Okay, it's a bit more complicated than that; the style he and others developed in the 1940s or so, called "New Criticism," basically treats any work as a self-contained piece, studying it more through close readings of various parts and concentration on relationships between various characters, events, sounds or rhythms (in poetry) and other bits of the work, rather than concentrating so much on its relation to the outside world. It's a fairly rigid type of formalism.) The Exeter English department is way, way more into something that seems like a fanatic form of New Historicism, where they study a work practically exclusively in relation to historic events at the time of its writing, the life of the author, other books written around the time, other examples of the genre, etc. etc. (This is, if course, when we have any discussion at all. But anyway.)

I'm somewhere in the middle between the two schools of thought. I'm sure there's a name for the type of criticism I like, but I don't know what it is and can't be bothered to look it up at the moment. ;) When I write papers, I perhaps lean a little towards the cultural studies side, although I do a good amount of formal critiqueing, too. However, I get the most out of a class where the dominant style is some form of formalism, where discussion is centered on relationships amongst the pages of the book and thorough dissection of small chunks of prose or poetry, so I'm beginning to see part of the reason why this year hasn't been so academically satisfying. (I maintain that a larger part of the reason is that the classes here are CRAP, but anyway.)

And I'm a little shocked that I've managed to absorb enough about litcrit over the past three years to write all that. Huh.

*

In other news, I'm over the minimum word count for essay #1! Just need to tie up a few loose ends and write a conclusion, and then I can move on to essay #2, the Wonderfalls essay. :)

Comments

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

The Exeter English department is way, way more into something that seems like a fanatic form of New Historicism, where they study a work practically exclusively in relation to historic events at the time of its writing, the life of the author, other books written around the time, other examples of the genre, etc. etc.

Uh oh. As someone who is nearly a fanatic about New Criticism, I am a little worried by this. :)

[icepixie]

Piece of advice? If you can afford another program, do it. I would do the Exeter program again, but only because without that stipend I would get to whatever university I'm going to and just sit there all year for lack of money with which to travel. I never dreamed the academic frustration would get so bad. I've never come so close to actual, real depression as I have this year, and it's all because of classes and inadequate library resources. Going on the class trips has been awesome, but really? I can organize my own trips.

If you do come to Exeter, take a class from Karen Hicks. Apparently she taught at Kenyon for some number of years, and her classes are awesome. (She teaches things like Milton.)

Er, yes. Now that I've scared you away completely... ;)