I want to study literature. I’m not an English Literature major or anything related, but I feel a pull to it. I wouldn’t mind dissecting and analyzing a text. So I figured I’d give it a try on my own.

I read about 80% of Paradise Lost and could follow along easily. On a surface level I understood the story. But then I watched a series of lectures from a Yale professor where he deep dives into the nuances of every line and what they meant to Milton on a personal level, along with hidden possible meanings and metaphors. I was left both amazed and feeling like I’m too dumb for this.

So I tried again.

I read the prologue of Beowulf… and there’s a lot I don’t understand. Just in the first few lines, whats a “foundling”? What’s a “whale-road”? I know I can watch videos of people explaining it, but that seems like having the answers just handed to me.

I want to have the skills to read a text and proficiently find an essays worth of insight within it. Maybe I’m just underestimating myself, but I feel like the world has so many highly intelligent, quick-minded people, and I’m sadly and frustratingly not one of them.

  • SarahseptumicBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    How could you have known Milton’s meaning without knowing the context of his life, the times and the writings he referenced? It’s literally impossible to know that, unless you’re a scholar specializing in that era. I studied literature, and Milton, but no way I could get much deeper than the surface text without reading a lot of extra materials.

    If you want to get into critically analyzing texts, start by reading theory or critical editions. Familiarize yourself with the terms and techniques. The fact that you got a lot out of that professor’s videos, shows you’ll probably be good at and enjoy critical reading.