My process of analyzing literature has been an interesting one. I think the most important change happened while reading plays. Before, I could not claim to be a fan of reading plays--I thought that it was incomplete since there was nothing but the dialogue to read. It was hard for me to pay attention to and hard for me to want to sit and read. I was a strong believer that a play was to be watched, books were to be read, and poetry bridged that gap and could be watched or read silently. However, many of my preconceived notions were changed.
In this blog post, I explored the different aspects of a play that was watched on stage. There were different stage directions, props, and costume changes that all contributed to the effectiveness of the play. I feel that a play like The Secret Life of Suitcases was well done on stage. However, I learned that plays can be read if the reader has enough imagination to create the scene. In that way, maybe The Secret Life of Suitcases would be an interesting play to read rather than watch. We read a play called Trifles in class, which to my surprise, I found to be highly entertaining. All of a sudden, I found myself recreating the stage in my head--which is something I had never even attempted before. I applied that same concept to other classes while reading Brian Friel's The Freedom of the City and began to understand the scene more than before. I also started to pick apart the dialogue and find deeper meaning in the plays while reading. I was able to understand the value of a play.
I have always been a fan of short stories. My love for them and my appreciation was not affected. I don't think it was a bad thing that I still love short stories just as much now as I did before. I was, instead, introduced to more stories than I would have found on my own. Something I did learn was that I have a distaste for graphic novels--which, again, is not a bad thing. I think that it is valuable to be introduced to all different kinds of writing and since I had never read a graphic novel before, it was eye-opening to me. For me personally, I found it hard to relate to and hard to get into the flow of reading it. The separate story boxes broke everything apart too much. So, that short section was a struggle for me. I still appreciate that I was introduced to it.
The last section was poetry. I think that Allie Jones did a good job showing how to analyze a poem. My own blog post also shows a similar way of doing this. I learned that there is no right or wrong way to read a poem and the reader should do whatever works for them. I enjoyed the opportunity to write about poems that meant a lot to me as well. The first poem that I wrote about was possibly too personal of a poem to post to a class blog since it deals with deeply rooted beliefs. I still thought it was very good to analyze my own poem. The second poem I analyzed was done better with less passion (not that passion is a bad thing). I found the balance between analyzing and adding a personal tone to it.
Overall, the process was very good for me even though I was frustrated at times. I appreciated the literature that I was able to read this semester and found everything very enlightening.
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