Why I hate English Literature

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As you might have guessed from the tone of some of my previous postings, I'm not really enjoying my English Literature course at the moment. That isn't to say I'm not enjoying being at university: I love it here in Sheffield, I enjoy the discussions in seminars, I like meeting people in lectures. The work isn't even that difficult. It's just that the books we have to read – with some notable exceptions – are just so boring.

Until recently, I'd never been able to put my finger on why I just couldn't get on with reading books like Sense & Sensibility, Wuthering Heights and most recently Women In Love. It isn't because I don't like the writing style, or the stories necessarily... I've realised now that it's because I hold the characters in such utter contempt that I wasn't giving the story a fair chance.

Let me clarify. I'm only talking about a fairly specific genre of novel here, but unfortunately it's the genre that crops-up more often than not on our course. I have two problems with them:

1. They're so generic! the stories are always about sisters, or a family, living in a big country manor; all is well until the time comes for one of them to get married off; there's usually am elderly relative who gets sick and ties; often a new family moves into the town and causes a few ripples; the handsome man falls in love with the girl, they have a falling out, they reconcile their differences, they get married.

2. The people in the stories – especially the women – do absolutely nothing all day long. They sew, they read books, they play the piano... but ultimately they do absolutely nothing with their lives. They don't have to worry about anything, because a servant has already done it for them. And yet they worry, panic, moan and mope about the most trivial of problems, like buttons, or fences, or what Mrs Fillywick in the village thinks about them because they she caught them talking to a bloke without a hat on. You have no problems whatsoever: get over it. Try living in the bloody real world.

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