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.
by PhotographFast1943
18 Comments
New information doesn’t enter the mind through osmosis or force of will. This is also true of those you watch online (or in a classroom) for analysis. They didn’t learn the things they lecture about because they’re extra special and have super powered brains- they did extensive study and listened to others, which is what you’re doing. You’re not dumb, you’re expanding your mind. It’s work. For everyone. No point feeling guilty over not knowing everything, just staying curious enough to learn is half the battle. Try not to be discouraged.
Being able to analyze a text is like any other skill – you need to keep doing it to develop proficiency. There’s nothing wrong with looking up various essays and videos that analyze a particular text – often times that can prompt a thought that takes you in another direction and depends your understanding.
Generally, I’d recommend joining a book club discussion of a book. Online ones are great since you have the potential to hear from people around the world, while in-person ones are a great way to get out and meet people nearby.
Wanting to deepen your understanding of literature is a great thing.
But *Paradise Lost* is an extremely rich and allusive poem, and you absolutely should not beat yourself up for not fully comprehending it on the first read.
>I want to have the skills to read a text and proficiently find an essays worth of insight within it.
Well, just to start with Milton: have you read the Bible? That’s a foundational text for LOTS of Western literature, to speak nothing of how crucial it is in understanding Paradise Lost.
Obviously the Bible has baggage. Replace it with the Iliad. Or Shakespeare. Or a *sensible* modern translation of Beowulf, or one that has annotations that don’t leave you feeling like a dumbass.
I guess my advice is to start by reading more widely, instead of going straight into critical analysis of dense works.
1. Professors will often present their interpretation of a work as objective truth. This isn’t always the case. Nobody (not even the author) gets to definitively be the authority of deeper meaning. Your views are equally valid as long as you support them.
2. Analyzing classic books generally requires a pretty extensive knowledge of the time, place, culture, etc. that they were written in. See if you can make sense of something a little more modern.
Don’t get discouraged. It’s not something that you just intuitively know how to do, it’s something that’s learned. You’re putting in the work by watching videos and using other sources to get a deeper understanding of a text. That’s half the battle. It is something that will start to come naturally to you and you’re not stupid for having to use outside sources to understand a certain work better. I’ve been studying literature for years and I can make my own interpretations but I still use other peoples analyses as a jumping off point for my own, especially when there’s historical references and context that we’d have to take multiple history classes to understand. It’s an ongoing education and a lot of textual analysis builds off itself. You’re doing great and you’re not stupid or slow for not immediately grasping it!
To be fair, Lit majors do reference a lot of other sources when they write critical essays to analyze a work of literature. And a lot of it is open to interpretation, so there’s no “wrong” answer. It’s all symbolism, metaphor and subtext. And it goes beyond what the author intended.
I‘m sure that’s not the case. It’s not a talent you’re born with but something you learn and can train. The Yale professor did not just pick up a book one day and analyzed/interpreted everything. He studied what to look for, how to connect these things with the authors life, the historical context and other works by the same author as well as completely different ones with similar themes. He has a lot of experience and most likely was well prepared for the lecture.
I‘d advise you to study the authors behind the book a bit and try to find connections between their life and their work.
And don’t beat yourself up if you can’t make sense of something instantly, you‘ll get their
Learning stuff makes you feel dumb. Don’t give up. You have the interest and desire to do this, and that will carry you a very long way. It’s already gotten you through Paradise Lost, which most people haven’t achieved.
A different translation of Beowulf might help you. Wikipedia tells me that it’s considered difficult to translate and that there are tons of versions. If you’re serious about your ambitions, contact a professor who specializes in Old English works, tell them your story and ask for advice. Most of them would probably be thrilled to help someone interested in majoring in literature.
There is no shame in reading literary analysis. Recently I have been relying on it heavily to understand Shakespeare’s sonnets, the poetry of William Butler Yeats, etc. I do read a lot of plays and I don’t need help to think about dramatic situations. Plays simply are not written to be that difficult to understand. The audience always needs to be able to get it. But poetry is pretty difficult unless you want to ponder every line for days.
If you are studying Greek drama then the Cambridge Translations from Greek Drama provide excellent commentary and background information.
Critical analysis is a skill that can be learned. That Yale professor likely devoted a large amount of time to the work, he did not just read it and have a whole lecture prepared. People major in this stuff so they can learn how to do it. You are not lesser because it doesn’t come naturally to you immediately upon reading a text. Especially when you consider connections to the author’s life and words you just don’t know. If you don’t know something, you don’t know it and no amount of staring at the text is going to make that clear to you. Use outside resources and you will slowly build the ability to analyze things.
This is a skill set that takes time and practice to enhance. If this is an interest you’re pursuing on your own, not for school or a job, then you have an advantage: no one is pressuring you to read these texts at a certain speed, and if at any time you’re not enjoying it you can stop or take a break.
I suggest you focus on reading things you want to read and discussing them with other people online. Talk about the parts you do have a grasp on, and ask questions about the parts you don’t. Eventually, with practice and input from other readers, you will feel the process get easier.
I recommend you continue to pursue your goal, while also allowing yourself to read without always understanding. As far as not knowing what a word means, that’s common for readers of all levels. Even people with multiple degrees that teach at prestigious universities are going to encounter an unfamiliar word. They stop and look up what it means, and that’s exactly what you should do if you want to know the meaning. If you feel like the sentence makes sense without the exact meaning of a word, then don’t sweat it too much. But, personally, I almost always look up new words.
Using the tools and knowledge available to you while you’re steadily improving your own skills is not cheating or taking the easy way. It’s how everyone learns to analyze a text.
That professor has spent countless hours studying, reflecting, researching and perfecting his analysis.
It’s like anything else it takes time and practice and a lot of learning.
One of the better things I’ve done for my analysis skills to to actually write a review for any book I read. Just taking the time to reflect on why I liked it and why I didn’t did a lot for me. As well as I’m reading and I find myself having strong feelings about the story one way or another, I know I’m going to review it so I try and puzzle out exactly what it is that’s making me either deliriously happy on enraged about the book. And sometimes it’s just a mediocre story but I still try and figure out why I feel that way.
Both those texts your mentioned I studied extensively in University. I would not have been able to critically analyze them without those classes.
You’re fine. There’s lots to learn and those are complicated writings from a long time ago.
“I know I can watch videos of people explaining it, but that seems like having the answers just handed to me.”
Yeah, it’s called learning things. Looking something up isn’t “having it handed to you”. You’re not going to be able to figure out Paradise Lost without looking things up. No one can.
What are you starting with Beowulf and Paradise Lost????
You have to work your way up to those kinds of texts.
Start small. Start easy. Learn to annotate.
As others have said, it’s a skill that gets developed. If you were a Lit Major, you start small. Is this character happy and does it matter? Does part of this text remind you of a famous person or event, and if so what does the rest of the book say about that? How does the context it was written in change your understanding?
Start with more approachable texts, and focus on something you find interesting. It doesn’t even have to be a book, when I got my MA in Lit one of my classmates were analyzing Harold and Kumar movies. Another looked at Atonement. Another did Lovecraft stories. Keep it breezy, this is supposed to be fun
Hey, I totally understand. Old work is hard to understand because of outdated language. As well, someone might give a long lecture on how they interpret a text. But as long as you back up your interpretation with lines from the book, your interpretation can be very very different. As a writer I sometimes see people go really deep into my work. This honestly makes me so happy to see someone interpret things at such a deep level. But not all details I insert are intentional. Not every flower is a symbol. Consequently some people interpret everything as a deeper symbol and that can be overwhelming and is usually untrue.
Therefore, readers miss key information and symbols authors put in their work but readers interpret symbols the writers did not intentionally put in. This can be fun but becomes a bit too much if the reader interprets every line and every word as something greater.
That professor has been analyzing it for decades you literally just read it yesterday. It’s normal to not get ever single reference, idea, motif on the first read.
As an English major, it is impossible to critically analyse any work without outside discussion–differing perspectives make your analysis better! We learned critical analysis by reading and engaging with analysis to form our own analysis. Don’t feel ashamed by needing or wanting outside analysis to engage with difficult texts–use it as an excuse to see differing perspectives. As you practise engaging critically with texts, you’ll find yourself seeing more and more your first time through–but you will always be able to see more with help from others. The whole world of literary criticism is built on the community working together.