How has my approach to reading American literature evolved in this course? Upon gazing at this I am compelled to conjure up yet another question, derivative of what my eyes so tentatively focus on: how should I approach this assignment? There is another issue as well: wouldn't a five page translation of my thoughts onto paper be marked by a large amount of filler (after all, this is a question that I could conceivably answer in short)? The greater picture behind this deliberation is a desire for my thoughts to be efficiently articulated. This, I believe, is a process that all writers have in common, or at least one that all should share. .
I read like I write. My eyes touch the paper in much the same way my pen does "carefully. Just as it is important to write a paper that has a voice, it is also important that the reader be able to decipher this voice in a meaningful way. When I read, my primary objective is obtaining the meaning, for if I have not done this, then what have I accomplished? .
Maybe by saying THE meaning I am being too black and white though. Literature, poetry, for example, can mean so many different things to so many different people, and there should be no room for narrow-mindedness. One must understand that the meaning he or she derives from the text is one of a number of possibilities "even an infinite amount. .
What I have gained from this course is more or less an understanding of how others and I read American literature, not how we should read it. This, I believe, was the most important and unique aspect of our class. My past experiences with literature classes have been loaded with subjectivity where to deviate from a professor's interpretation would be detrimental to one's grade, and supposedly doing the text a great injustice. In English 278 it has felt like a level of objectivity is welcome and encouraged, and this goes great lengths in exhibiting the many different angles that a work can be viewed from.
