English Literature majors may be familiar with this experience: you’re sitting around with some other college students who you don’t know. Everyone’s talking about their workload: the pre-meds are talking about how tough organic chemistry is, the business majors are complaining about corporate finance. Then someone asks you what you’re majoring in, and you respond, innocently, “English literature.” Everyone’s smiles become a little fixed, someone politely asks you if you’ve read anything good lately, and then the conversation rapidly moves on to other matters. But you can hear what everyone’s thinking, as clearly as though they’ve said it: “What a slacker.”
There’s a perception among students of the science and business persuasions that degrees in the humanities are a soft option. As a lit student who attends a college made up mostly of science majors, I’ve been on the receiving end of my share of polite patronization. Non-literature majors think of my field of study as a kind of school sanctioned circle time, with the teacher reading a fun book, and then everyone talking about their favorite parts after. It’s true: there’s a lot of reading involved in my degree. But there’s nothing cutesy or childish about the literature major. In fact, I would argue that, in its own way, it’s one of the most challenging.
Let me explain: in many majors, you can do well -- exceedingly well, even -- by rote memorization. The bones in the body, the formulas of specific equations, the principles of game theory or of a specific psychological approach: all can be tested by mere spit-back, which can easily preclude comprehension and practical application.
But a lit class is different. You can turn up to one having memorized all the characters, the climax, the writing style and the author’s favorite drink, but you’ll have missed the point. Literature classes demand that you think, that you analyze the various contexts of the work, that you find themes and patterns and meanings in the text that may not be obvious. All of that can only be done if you engage intellectually with the text in front of you, if you concentrate and search out new meanings. Memorization will do you no good: clear and absorbed interest will.
Aside from the rigorous engagement a lit class requires, the moral payoff is considerable. Unlike in other classes, lit students spend their time discussing, not facts, but ideas and ideals. Literature is a lens through which to discuss all of life -- morals and pitfalls and so many loaded topics we still struggle with today. At my school, the English department has a student-faculty party at the end of every year, the only department to do so. Other students often wonder at the rock-star status we lit students afford our professors. But it makes complete sense to me. When you discuss morality with someone, when you talk about emotionally loaded concepts, when you share something you wrote that’s really a bit of your soul -- of course you’ll forge a connection with that person.
So what’s silly or frivolous about being a literature student? Instead of spending my days occupied with memorizing minutiae, I debate the ideals of a good and honest life. I struggle with confusion and uncertainty, and I accept that sometimes, the most I can have is the knowledge that I won’t be sure. My consecrated words don’t come from a work of economics or chemistry: they come from Shakespeare, Woolf, Hardy, Austen, Tolstoy and so many others. As G.K. Chesterton said, “People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature -- people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple -- it is merely that the novel is truer than they are.”
