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Writing Guide
16. Wider thinking
Literary criticism relies in the last analysis (some critics would argue, is inextricably linked to) a wider understanding of politics, philosophy, psychology, theology, sociology and history. Here it is impossible to cut corners, but clearly the extent of your understanding and life-experience in extra-literary realms will affect your possible understanding of literature. This is one of the things that makes the study of literature so exciting. If you have time to read or think more widely, this is excellent. Debating basic issues among yourselves (or sometimes with your tutors!) can help to achieve subtler, more accurate, more truthful thought. Bear in mind Alistair MacIntyre's wise observation: 'It has become increasingly plain that whether a man calls himself a Christian, a Marxist, or a liberal, may be less important than what kind of Christian, Marxist, or liberal he is'. If you have time (and you may not) the following are excellent: Alistair MacIntyre, After Virtue , Herbert McCabe, The Good Life , Iris Murdoch, the philosophical essays, Mary Midgley, Wickedness , and Science and Poetry , Valentine Cunningham, Reading After Theory , Michel Foucault, The Order of Things .
Study should be a joy. It is finding out more about yourself, others, and the world. One important way of doing well is to be friends with the other people in your year. You can learn a great deal by debate and discussion, by watching a Shakespeare play on video with a few friends and then talking through responses; debating a critical essay or approach; finding out what someone else found useful reading on a particular subject. Another way of doing well is to practise and so get to enjoy writing essays, to gradually overcome essay-writing phobia. The discipline of setting down thought and argument, of articulating exactly what you mean, is the process by which the mind naturally grows into a real understanding of itself and its subject.
Studying literature and language is a great adventure, exacting, wonderful, and profound. Good luck! And always ask for help if you need it.
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