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This realization made me wonder just how many approaches to literary criticism could possibly exist – in this semester alone, I’ve been exposed to several, some of which I had used in one way or another in the past. Little did I know, each has its own name and history attached to it. For instance, in the beginning of this semester we discussed New Criticism, the idea that texts are “self-contained and self-referential and thus [New Critics] based their interpretations on elements within the text rather than on external factors such as the effects of…historical materials” (Murfin & Ray, 335). On the very next page of the Bedford, an approach called “the new historicism” is explained, a type of criticism that nearly directly contradicts new critical formalism because “New historicist critics assume that literary works both influence and are influenced by historical reality…” (Murfin & Ray, 336). Based on the three approaches I’ve already mentioned in this post, there’s a range (and there are so many more forms of criticism I doubt I’ve even heard of yet) of ways to analyze a single text.

I’ve always heard people say that literary works mean different things to different people, and now it’s more clear to me how that can be. How one chooses to interpret a text depends on what perspectives, experiences, and ideas about the world you bring to the table. A Marxist critic isn’t going to see the same things as a New Critic, and both will differ from the ideas of a New Historicist. Furthermore, I question if literary critics even neatly line up into one track or another. Although I’m only a freshman English student, who hasn’t had nearly enough time or experience studying literature to be aligned in any way, it seems to me that most people approach literary works with components of all the theories I’ve talked about and more. For instance, in class we discussed how many of the tools we learned in high school stem from New Critical Formalism – I’ve done an endless amount of close readings, and have always been prompted to focus on imagery, rhyme, etc. But nobody adheres to this; we also look at the historical context of the books we read, the experiences of the authors, the messages works deliver about the nature of society and humanity. Interdisciplinarity and The Bedford help expose readers to an endless amount of ways to evaluate literature, something which helps reinforce the idea that a variety of perspectives and ideas is incredibly valuable when trying to discuss a work.

While thinking about this, it became clear to me just how present classic literature has been throughout my life. When I was younger, the Disney movie The Lion King introduced me, although I couldn’t have known it at the time, to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Years later, when I read Hamlet, the plot already seemed familiar to me – I had come across it in so many forms already. Plus, most people know some of the play’s most famous lines because Hamlet is quoted in numerous television shows, movies, and books. I also has easy-to-read, abridged versions of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe when I was little, which familiarized me with forms of “highbrow culture” before I knew anything about classic literature. These examples, and undoubtedly many others, support Frow’s belief that literature is available to a wide variety of people, not just those who study it. I’m not saying that watching The Lion King is a substitute for reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but the classics have become so ingrained in modern culture that it’s hard to say that English majors are pretentious about which texts they read. Choosing to study literature means not only analyzing the work itself, but understanding its impact on society and how it has been drawn from countless times by other forms of entertainment.

Moran touches on the desire I feel to justify my interest in English to this friend with the statement “Most English students will be familiar with the ribbing by students in subjects such as law, engineering, and medicine…” (Moran 18). Although Moran only brushes on the topic and moves on to elaborate on the discipline’s controversial history, I was stuck on this and could only think about my friend’s attitude. I’ve heard it all from her – “You’re going to end up homeless” being my favorite – but each time it comes up I can’t help but remember all the papers she asked me to edit, or the literature I helped her analyze. As much as she likes to deny it, she needs English. She’ll always have e-mails to write, books to read for that one humanities elective, and people to impress. The world can’t be run solely by engineers. There needs to be some culture, some ability to thoughtfully develop an argument, and some willingness to consider the themes that literature contains.

Interdisciplinarity discusses the English major’s problem with earning respect for the discipline. I find it hard to understand why there are students who are willing to write off an entire area of study. I think we need a little bit of everything, whether we choose to specialize in it or not. I respect the laws of physics, the contributions an engineer makes to society, and the cultural understanding anthropology brings. All I ask is for my friend to withhold her judgment enough to let me explain why I want to study English – this discipline has its purpose too.

All in all, the biggest question Interdisciplinarity has brought to my mind is “…why am I friends with her anyway?”