Depressing Literature

[PyrosNine]

Now, I'm sure as you're all aware, that True art is Angsty. As someone carrying the proverbial pen as a lit/writer in college, one thing I am expected to do is understand and appreciate art, my only problem is that this usually ends up with me having to read about a little girl tripping and falling into a river, bashing her head open on a rock after drowning- FROM HER PERSPECTIVE. Or a story about a rapist who rapes a little girl after hiding under her bed, narrowly gets caught but lies his way out of it, goes home where we find he has his own little girl, whom he then rapes. Or story about divorced man who gets a drunken call from a girl who likely wasn't serious about it calling him over at the 3:00 am, and so he pulls his son out of bed and puts him in the car, and decides to drive across state in search of some poon. The kicker is that once he thinks his son is asleep, he starts falling asleep himself, and decides that not only is rest and giving up on his quest not an option, but the only thing to do is to masturbate to keep himself awake. The very last line of the poem makes it explicitly clear that his son was very much awake.

And at the end of the day, my teacher will ask us how we feel about what we just read. He has caught on to their somewhat morbid, soul crushing nature at this point so he is very careful not to invite a question whose only answer is "How do you think I feel after reading that? I'm depressed/scared/shattered as hell, you fat *expletive known only to English majors*!?!!?"

I mean, I can take the usual levels of atrocity in what I read, I know of the good catharsis inherent in tragedy that will realign me with 'real' world, I know that there are real stories in life that are more tragic than this shit being dished out to me for a grade, but also that these authors were depressed as hell when they wrote most of this stuff.

The fact that many of these stories go explicitly to say: "Life is pointless, there is no reason to put forth any hope or dream at all in anything, you deluded fool! Everything you know is wrong, everyone you love will die, and at the end of things, you will die in the worst, possible way but that's the only positive outlook because life is like broken needles in your eyes full of the aids and sulfuric acid."

And I have to wonder then, why did you have to write this anyway? If it's all so pointless, then there was no point in you even writing this! There was a point maybe, if this was to grapple with your own dark looming thoughts, those unsavory weights dragging your feet down, riding your legs like children, but then you had to go and write a sequel with different subject matter, but same purpose and ultimate theme: Go shoot yourself!

And it's not that the lack of angst does not mean art has no merit. There is nothing tragic about the Mona Lisa, is there? The student written story about the vengeful ex-magician with the innuendo laced parlor tricks was just as well written as My Last Duchess, detail, character, setting! It seems that people will use the angst, the depressing, the tragic as just something to give their story an extra edge. It is fitting that while on his quest, he should be shot, dragged, burned, cursed, but fashionable for him to arrive at the end of the quest with everyone he's loved forever removed from him and his shaggy dog shot in the face!

My main complaint is that us English majors have it rough enough already. Stuck in the back corner of an engineering school, we got the least of the scholarships, and the good idea that our diploma will be worth less than the paper it was printed on. Or that part of the reason we're writers is that we're alienated as hell already, and write to put down transient thoughts to permanence, or maybe it's just that I've got a nephew in the wings my sister can't afford, I think my dog's sick, and I've had like two deaths in the family, and I spend my watching silly movies and playing stupid webgames rather than deal with the fact I have school in the morning and that it will likely meet me like a fist, a claw, or a dull mace that I have worn down slowly with face.

And then I have to go to class and read someone else's manifesto on why they have no faith in the human race! It's too much! If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever, and it's the boot of an acclaimed author.

Questions? Comments?

[Satan's Onion]

Are you allowed to reveal that "expletive known only to English majors" to us mortals, or do we have to guess what it is?

On the bright side, when you're a writer, maybe you can have your pointlessly soul-crushing nihilistic stories and poems placed on college curricula. See, if you can't solve the problem, you can at least pass it on to the next generation of hapless students.

[BloodyMage]

Originally Posted by Satan's Onion

Are you allowed to reveal that "expletive known only to English majors" to us mortals, or do we have to guess what it is?

What about those of us who do English Majors? Can you tell us because I can't think of one that the plebs wouldn't know?

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

My flatmate is an English pHD and his field is 18th century epistolary novels- nothing depressing about lots of them.

1748. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Woman published by Samuel Richardson. A young virtuous woman is drugged, raped and kept prisoner by a man attempting to trick her into marrying him. While yes, some of them aren't depressing, the likely hood is that you'll have to have to study the darker ones to get to the more pleasant ones.

Part of an English Major though is really the exploration of literature and trying to figure out why the author wrote what he wrote and what exactly he was trying to say. This is why you'll see so many different fields of literary criticism ranging from historic critics to psychoanalytical criticism. I mean, I'm not familiar with what books you're talking about but if you look at some of the authors and what was happening in their lives, such as (for lack of a better example) Jack Kerouac's On The Road. It's so closely autobiographical that you can pretty much place the whole book into his life but the names are changed. The whole book isn't that dark, certainly not as much as the books you've mentioned, but it's depressing because the character mentions that he's just lost his father, he's split from his wife and he's recovering from an illness and by the end of the book, nothing has really changed. He's traversed America but nothing really changed, he's not much of a better person because of it, and if you look into the context of the author you see that he's writing this after his father has died, and his separated from his wife and he's recovered from an illness and travelled back and forth across America, so you can see why he's written this novel. Nothing changes in the novel because the writer feels that nothing has changed. And that's how it happens sometimes. You've got a writer who feels pretty depressed and down, but he's a writer and he wants to write, so he writes, but what he's feeling comes out in his writing and you even up with depressed literature.

I mean, Smarty does have a point though. Some genre's are less prone to it, so you could do 18th C epistolary novels and you might have to study some depressing stories like the one mentioned about but it's going to be less prominent in that than it might be in Gothic literature or post-war literature. Do you have the option of choosing your modules each year?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by BloodyMage

1748. Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Woman published by Samuel Richardson. A young virtuous woman is drugged, raped and kept prisoner by a man attempting to trick her into marrying him. While yes, some of them aren't depressing, the likely hood is that you'll have to have to study the darker ones to get to the more pleasant ones.

Yes but there is a difference between outlining terrible events and incorporating them into a encompassing literary theory- it's the difference between "Here is a rape" and "WE ARE ALL RAPISTS".

Part of an English Major though is really the exploration of literature and trying to figure out why the author wrote what he wrote and what exactly he was trying to say. This is why you'll see so many different fields of literary criticism ranging from historic critics to psychoanalytical criticism. I mean, I'm not familiar with what books you're talking about but if you look at some of the authors and what was happening in their lives, such as (for lack of a better example) Jack Kerouac's On The Road. It's so closely autobiographical that you can pretty much place the whole book into his life but the names are changed. The whole book isn't that dark, certainly not as much as the books you've mentioned, but it's depressing because the character mentions that he's just lost his father, he's split from his wife and he's recovering from an illness and by the end of the book, nothing has really changed. He's traversed America but nothing really changed, he's not much of a better person because of it, and if you look into the context of the author you see that he's writing this after his father has died, and his separated from his wife and he's recovered from an illness and travelled back and forth across America, so you can see why he's written this novel. Nothing changes in the novel because the writer feels that nothing has changed. And that's how it happens sometimes. You've got a writer who feels pretty depressed and down, but he's a writer and he wants to write, so he writes, but what he's feeling comes out in his writing and you even up with depressed literature.

This is all irrelevant if you are a new critic *titter titter*
Man I hate new criticism. It is especially great because I only encounter literary theory as it crossects with historical analysis of sources so we get new critic historians. Most self-defeating field ever.

[Funka Genocide]

I like how you mentioned "for lack of a better example." You are such a Kerouac hater Barrelpants.

[BloodyMage]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Yes but there is a difference between outlining terrible events and incorporating them into a encompassing literary theory- it's the difference between "Here is a rape" and "WE ARE ALL RAPISTS".

Maybe we are all rapists. Our desire to invade and colonise foreign lands is part of our desire to penetrate that which does not belong to us. Illegal downloading and piracy is our inherent need to steal pleasure that has been forbidden to us. In some sense, aren't we all raping something?*

This is all irrelevant if you are a new critic *titter titter*
Man I hate new criticism. It is especially great because I only encounter literary theory as it crossects with historical analysis of sources so we get new critic historians. Most self-defeating field ever.

I'd like to see a New Critic actually try and analyse On the Road though because there's two versions. The published one and the scroll version, the latter of which doesn't use the pseudonyms but the real names, including Kerouac's own, so ignoring what the author says means practically disregarding the entire text itself.

*Just to be clear, I am not being serious.

[Funka Genocide]

The title of my next novel shall be We Are All Rapists.

No, you will not receive any credit for the idea.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by BloodyMage

Maybe we are all rapists. Our desire to invade and colonise foreign lands is part of our desire to penetrate that which does not belong to us. Illegal downloading and piracy is our inherent need to steal pleasure that has been forbidden to us. In some sense, aren't we all raping something?*

I'm not arguing that it's not the case- but you don't always have to read about it. Also I saw you raping like 6 chicks last night

I'd like to see a New Critic actually try and analyse On the Road though because there's two versions. The published one and the scroll version, the latter of which doesn't use the pseudonyms but the real names, including Kerouac's own, so ignoring what the author says means practically disregarding the entire text itself.

*Just to be clear, I am not being serious.

That is merely an attempt by the authour to regain control of his lost work- it is an artefact of a creative process completely removed from the original creative process and thus fundamentally cannot be considered relevant. I could take say Dorian Grey and change all the names to me and my friends but that wouldn't mean I was a flaming homosexual.

[Ecks]

Originally Posted by BloodyMage

Maybe we are all rapists. Our desire to invade and colonise foreign lands is part of our desire to penetrate that which does not belong to us. Illegal downloading and piracy is our inherent need to steal pleasure that has been forbidden to us. In some sense, aren't we all raping something?*

*Just to be clear, I am not being serious.

Why the hell not? You raise a good point.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by Satan's Onion

Are you allowed to reveal that "expletive known only to English majors" to us mortals, or do we have to guess what it is?

The spirits of Shakespeare and Chaucer will smite anyone who reveals one of the secrets of the trade.