What is Literature?
9-22-19
The Terry Eagleton essay has really caught my attention, and I’m very excited to be writing about it. While I was reading the article, I actually pulled out my highlighter and was saving some quotes that I thought were really interesting. I ended up writing them down in my personal journal and having a sort of philosophical discussion to myself about everything that Eagletone was arguing.
I’ve never had the opportunity, at least through a classroom setting, to really ask why people value certain pieces of writing as literature over other pieces of writing. In high school, we just take these novels like The Great Gatsby or Of Mice and Men at face value and just let our teachers tell us how great they are. I’ve been encouraged to argue, but I haven’t been encouraged to try and identify the root causes of what literature has become, which is exactly what Eagleton is doing here. I’m very excited to explore this in my paper.
What’s my story?
10-6-19
I’ve gotten my first draft back from Dr. Pennington, and it looks like I’ve made a couple mistakes in my analysis. I focused too much on being objective, when I can actually show a little more of my own perspective in my paper. He asked me to include more of my own personal stories in order to show a better understanding of each of the definitions that Eagleton provides. So I have to get personal, which could actually be kind of fun.
The one definition that Eagleton provides that I think is really fun to write about is his concept of value judgements and the idea that people can decide what is a right way to read a piece of writing and what is the wrong way. Obviously, I disagree with this fact. As long as you can support your argument, I think writing can be read any way. But this concept made me think of all the times I had been recommended a book by a friend, and was met with frustration by them when I decided that I didn’t like it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, “well, I think you just didn’t read it correctly.” Nah, I don’t think so. I think I just didn’t like the book.
Evaluation
10-13-19
Second draft is done, woo! I just got it back from Dr. Pennington and… I wasn’t precise enough. How many times do I have to be reminded to not be general in my analysis? Maybe one day I’ll actually learn and get it right the first time (or draft) around. For now, I’ll just keep revising and try to be a little more thorough.
Generality is something I struggle with most of the time anyways, but I think the subjectivity of this paper is getting me. I’m not providing enough about myself in the paper because I don’t think that counts as support to my claims. I provided one good example connecting my experience with literature to one of Eagleton’s definitions, but I have to go back and do that for each of them. I should try to not let the new-ness of this paper style get in the way of me actually being efficient.
