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.

  • cMeeber@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Just keep reading more. And look up every word you know. Don’t ask Reddit what a foundling is, Google it or use a dictionary. When I was in highschool I would look up, in a dictionary close to my bed (we didn’t have internet), what every word I didn’t know meant and then used it in a sentence to myself so it would stick.

    Now things are more convenient, you can look it up on a phone. Even better if you’re reading on a kindle you can highlight the word. Reading expands vocabulary so much.

    I’m sure more reading can help with your grasp of metaphor too…at least in modern lit where you understand context more. Ask yourself questions as you read…what does the author mean by that? Was that description important on a larger level?

    Start with modern texts…not centuries old texts that you don’t even have an educational foundation for.