my paper

Significant Anxiety

There exists something in the mental engagement with literature. It’s not coherent or overtly recognizable. It’s rather an instinctual draw to yearn for rhetoric. Whether engaging in the current cultural discourse or reading about the emotions of the past there is always an inherent skill with it. Reading, writing, and dramatic performances are the keen skills in use in the life of an English major. Literature engagement promotes not just the skill to be able to perform successful daily functions but also the skill to interpret those daily functions to all.
It’s true that traditionally rhetoric accounts for the “here” and “now” but in order to comprehend cultural movements of the past people need to read more. Reading, whatever genre it may be will eventually yield skills that help one convey what they actually feel. What would historical pursuits be if there wasn’t the literature to exude the feelings of the time? What would psychological interpretation actually mean if there were no developed metaphors or literary allusions? What would happen if portraits of place, character, winter or human interactions were not recycled in contemporary culture? There would be no culture.
Thought processes can be reduced to cognitive functions and learned imitations. Such thought processes are required in mathematical pursuits but what happens after that? After all the equations, formulas and solutions were does the mind go? I’m certain it doesn’t do anything except idle in preparation for something else. Poetry on the other hand starts will the idle mind and invokes infinite tangents to be discovered. “Poetry awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptable of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought” (Shelley). Surely no mathematical equation can do this. Of course, there are symbols substituted in math but they would not have quality definitions without a history of prose accompanying them. Symbols exist only for further illustrating a definition. The hinges of a door wouldn’t mean anything unless the symbol of a door is cognitively invoked. Symbols in poetry are “primarily a verbal structure or set of representative words” (Frye). Dare I say the same representative symbols exist in math? Yes, only math ends with solutions and does promote anything beyond that. However literature engagement is everything beyond a solution.
Daily functions are more often reduced to habits of the economical realm reality. They are habits necessary for autonomous being. With the futile practice of cleaning, laboring or driving nothing can subside the monotony of daily functions like writing about them. I cannot name or think of any other discipline that promotes reflection in the form of writing. Writing “nonsense by the ream” becomes the interpretation of what happened and turn it into what is felt about the “happening.”
No social interaction can be repeated in the same way. The mental engagement in producing something on paper forces the mind to create out of memory and rhetorical emotion. “It is admitted that the exercise of the imagination is most delightful, but it is alleged that that of reason is more useful” was one of Shelley’s many “reasons” for promoting the continuation of delightful imagination in creating poetry (Shelley). Reason is a powerful abstract method for suggesting how to understand something. In contrast to having the anxiety in comprehending “reasons” why does poetry invoke such similar anxiety? The deference is in the type of anxiety in “abstract reason” and “literary allusion.” Abstract reasons hosts anxiety that is purposeful. It exudes anxiety the purpose of eventually understanding an idea. Literary allusion promotes anxiety that is detached. It promotes anxiety detached from a central understanding or comprehension. The evocative feelings of reading or creating poetry are the anxious addictive mentalities the mind sifts through in order to comprehend what’s possible in poetry. One poem can mean one thing for one person yet mean another thing for the same person an hour later.
The feeling of anxiety are the emotions of a moment. Sure people can label their work day full of anxious duties and tasks but none actually know the true feeling unless they chose to engage with literature. Reading about the life of a character in a novel and not knowing what will happen in unsure circumstances is true anxiety. It’s the most organic kind of emotion available for human life because it comes from the imagination. The feeling of connecting with a literary character is foremost unique because the mind constructs a relationship that exists simultaneously in reality and imagination. “We want the creative faculty to imagine that which we know; we want the generous impulse to act that which we imagine; we want the poetry of life,” is an instinctual draw to the rhetorical moments of the past (Shelley). It’s also the unique feeling of life while reading about life in poetry.
What other classrooms host a place for imagination such as literature classes do? How can a power point presentation instill more social connections than a comical sketch performance? I’m certain power point presentations can for a few moments but certainly they wouldn’t last in the imagination of the audience as much as a stage performance would for a long time after.
In the classroom inspiration is paramount. No imagination will get sparked unless passion for literature is exemplified. “For who will be taught if he be not moved with desire to be taught” (Sidney). In other collegiate disciplines group work encompasses a majority of learning. Where is the lesson in that? How can one individual feel the pressure to create something with their own knowledge and reflection? English majors have such experience in group work but mostly operate on their own. They have nothing but the text to engage with. Slowly but inevitably the opportunities become endless. What a singular person can take away from one text is more skillful than anything they would gain from group work. The forced lessons learned from a solo engagement with literature are not lessons in reading comprehension or composition. They are lessons about how one can critique them self. They are lessons in reflection.
According to Harold Bloom in his introduction to Edith Grossman’s English translation of Don Quixote de la Mancha, Don Quixote holds the mirror not up to nature, but up to the reader. Anyone’s name is always their favorite word in the world so why would a mirror be any different? Vanity doesn’t have to be self-idolatry it can also be the pure aesthetic relationship with a book. Self-idolatry can be character idolatry because in actuality it’s the praise of literature. Don Quixote can bring out the emotions of a reader and in doing so it shows the power of what’s possible from literature engagement.
Chivalry may be thought on many levels but the action of it commands attention. Ideological protests are almost exactly the same thing. If a person has the passion to rally groups of people for action then how different is this idea from Don Quixote? Acting on beliefs for a cause inspires others to wonder about the worth of achieving that cause. For Don Quixote his causes are simple. Wright the wrongs of what he views need it. His passion lies in the will to act against everything and only upon his knowledge. His knowledge surely is taken with disbelief by others in every single one of his argument in the novel. “Only be sure that it is passion, that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied, consciousness” is a statement written for the world but I see Don Quixote the only character able to do it (Pater). Don Quixote’s knowledge is a multiple consciousness. He acts with passion beyond reason except the knowledge of what he truly believes. Is there a possible lesson other than reading about his exploits that instill trustworthiness in one’s self? Chivalry is passion and action comes from trusting decisions based in knowledge. I’m just sorry people will not come to know this unless they yearn to engage with literature.
People often want to distinguish the difference between importance and anecdotal trivia. I’d like to state that everything that is or was important will be or was anecdotal at one time. Of course English majors are chalked up and catalogued as students of anecdotal knowledge. What happens when trivial knowledge gets taken out into the world with an English major? It gets used more than anything else. Stories create stories and anecdotal knowledge then becomes more useful in employment than knowing how operate a fork lift.
“Public relations” is a phrase used widely by a plethora of companies. What it really means is the ability to recognize and successfully interpret human needs. Without a public relation department a company would be without a voice. The skills of person having the background of literature engagement know what kind of a voice this should be. This “voice” for public relations is made only possible because it’s been a cultural discourse since the invention of the phrase “public relations.” It’s the voice of understanding what is needed and what is happening rhetorically within in social interaction. The voice is a collage of knowledge inside one’s mind that documents public commentary. Whether for a company’s purpose or self reflection, the voice inside one’s head comes from the mental engagement with literature. It’s not crazy it’s just addictive. What the instinctual draw is in engaging with prose and poetry is the yearn to feel any rhetorical significance, contemporary or historically.





Works consulted:




Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. 1957 Princeton University Press. Princeton

Paperback Edition 1990.


Pater, Walter. “Conclusion from The Renaissance” 1873. Peace Corps Mauritania’s

Literary Magazine. Vol I. January 2003.


Sidney, Sir Philip. “An Apology for Poetry” The Norton Anthology of Theory and

Criticism. Ed.Vincent B. Leitch. 2001 W. W. Norton and Company Incorporated


Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry” The Norton Anthology of Theory and

Criticism. Ed.Vincent B. Leitch. 2001 W. W. Norton and Company Incorporated.