- 5,842
- Forgotten Wing
I just thought I'd get a couple more opinions on this before I go and complain to my teacher about stuff.
So here's the deal:
Since the beginning of the year, the teacher has been assigning my class to write essays based on evidence we've found in analytical criticisms of the literary works we're reading. Only recently, when I actually started to write on of the essays, did I begin to doubt the credibility of analytical criticisms. Supposedly they're just credible because people gained a doctorate through backing themselves up on other peoples' criticisms, suggesting an endless cycle of criticisms dating back to the beginning of literature. This could not be the case, because according to my teacher in order to be a credible criticism, a person must have a doctorate in English. Granted, when literature started, they did not have doctorate degrees in anything. So somewhere the whole thing had to start with uneducated people writing about someone else's writing.
Now here's my biggest complaint: What exactly is it that defines what a criticism is? From my viewpoint, after having read a handful of them, these criticisms are just big fancy ways of people giving their opinions on what they thought of the book. That is something that anyone can do. If I want to write a paper on how Blanche from "A Streetcar Named Desire" won out over Stanley, but there are no criticisms to support that, then I'm screwed. But why is that? A criticism is someone else's opinion; why should I have to find the opinion of someone else to support my own idea? All they used was the actual literary work and things they'd learned in their growth to a doctorate in English to support their opinion; why can I not do the same?
Just some thoughts I've had...
So here's the deal:
Since the beginning of the year, the teacher has been assigning my class to write essays based on evidence we've found in analytical criticisms of the literary works we're reading. Only recently, when I actually started to write on of the essays, did I begin to doubt the credibility of analytical criticisms. Supposedly they're just credible because people gained a doctorate through backing themselves up on other peoples' criticisms, suggesting an endless cycle of criticisms dating back to the beginning of literature. This could not be the case, because according to my teacher in order to be a credible criticism, a person must have a doctorate in English. Granted, when literature started, they did not have doctorate degrees in anything. So somewhere the whole thing had to start with uneducated people writing about someone else's writing.
Now here's my biggest complaint: What exactly is it that defines what a criticism is? From my viewpoint, after having read a handful of them, these criticisms are just big fancy ways of people giving their opinions on what they thought of the book. That is something that anyone can do. If I want to write a paper on how Blanche from "A Streetcar Named Desire" won out over Stanley, but there are no criticisms to support that, then I'm screwed. But why is that? A criticism is someone else's opinion; why should I have to find the opinion of someone else to support my own idea? All they used was the actual literary work and things they'd learned in their growth to a doctorate in English to support their opinion; why can I not do the same?
Just some thoughts I've had...
