O English Major!

Now that I am no longer an English Literature Major (and I put that in proper form for a reason), I am ready to completely bash the field that I have enjoyed so greatly. Believe me, I would make fun of Bible majors much more than anyone in the English Department, but that would just be hypocrisy in its most simplest form.

So here's my list I've compiled of the many things that I laugh at in my random English lit classes I've taken thus far:

1) English majors have a ridiculous obsession with the characters they read about. In the middle of a novel, the class will be discussing whether they "trust Captain Benwick" or not. The guy is not real. Get the net. These are fictional characters that were made up three hundred years ago. It doesn't really do anyone any good for us to have a little pity party over your feelings towards the actions of King Duncan. I'm sorry you feel as though Anne should have been more forthright with the Admiral, but you'll just have to move on with life.

2) There seems to be "relevance" to every piece printed in scholarly anthologies. We were just discussing "Kubla Kahn," an eighteenth century poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and some of the comments made by the class made me giggle. The author admitted to being hyped up on opium while writing it - he says so in the introduction. But many of our famous classmates had to insist that "the imagery of the cities falling and the women calling for demon-lovers had a pang of resemblance to the political happenings of the time." Opium kids. This is your brain on drugs.

3) They actually believe T.S. Eliot was a poet.

4) English majors love hating on the most established and famous writers of the past. Milton is trash and Wordsworth is simply reckless. Arguments about such people and their value in English literature could be pressed on for days. Days, seriously.

5) Perhaps my biggest complaint about English majors is that they're really just wannabe philosophers. Every English teacher, professor, or Dr. I've ever had has said that they are not like the other English teachers, but that they really like the text. "I'm all about the text," they say admirably, "I don't like random, abstract ideas...give me concrete evidence and then we'll talk." Yeah right. We'll read a short poem or a paragraph from the novel and talk for the rest of the class period on how God could create evil or why we all end up suffering.

That felt good.

The irony in this is that I will actually miss so much in being an English major. The ideas that literature brings to the table and the way they are communicated are so incredibly fascinating. You just have to poke fun at what you love. Plus, my way of dealing with my grief of leaving is through inflicting pain on others. So tearing others down lifts me up...sue me.

Oh, and since I'm no longer an English major, please don't correct my grammar and spelling...I truly do not give two craps about it. Instead, keep me accountable with my morals or my theological ideas. I'm a Bible major now, bitch.