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(2017
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017 (index to #2 samples) #2b: Short Essay (Favorite Theme) |
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Chelsea Brotherton
To
Read or Not to Read: Thoughts on the Pleasure of Literature
Throughout this course thus far, the idea that I have found the most interesting
is the question of what is literature? What exactly is it that we enjoy reading,
and why? There are clearly texts that are not enjoyable to read, such as The
Federalist Papers, and then there are those that immediately demand attention,
such as the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson. But why is this? The answer
is not simply fiction versus non-fiction, as the Rowlandson text is a
non-fiction work that maintains its allure. I believe it is a combination of
action, dialogue, and writing style that gives a text its draw. Whereas those
texts that we find to be dry and boring not only often lack action and dialogue,
but tend to be either so full of language that it becomes difficult for most
readers to find the meaning, or the language is so bland that it holds no life.
In the case of The Federalist, the language is anything but plain, and its
flourishes create a work that must be scrutinized to fully comprehend. This is
not a text that can be casually read, and therefore makes it difficult to find
pleasure in reading it “An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of
the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will
be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at
the expense of the public good;” this is a sentence that takes some time to
digest, and its meaning is not plain. Not only is does the elaborate language of
this text make it a difficult read, but its subject matter is not altogether
appealing for the common reader either. There are certainly texts with ornate
language that are still gripping, but their subject matter is usually of great
interest. In The Federalist, the coupling of the language and the political
subject matter places this text out of the spectrum of enjoyable reading for
most people.
In contrast to The Federalist, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is a text
that is highly consuming. Edwards manages to use ornate language and still keep
this text alive and interesting: “The manifold and continual experience of the
world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very
brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another
world….Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there
are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their
weight.” This passage is written beautifully, and the language is laudable. But,
unlike in The Federalist, the language is not the only thing at work to make
this text enjoyable. The subject matter of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
is gripping. Edwards has a passion for his speech and it comes through like fire
on the page; the language only adds to the captivating subject matter.
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a very
different text from the others discussed thus far. This text is written quite
plainly, but is full of dialogue and action. Rowlandson jumps right into the
thick of things in the opening, and you’re immediately drawn into this text:
“there was who running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of
them his life… but they would not hearken to him but knocked him in head, and
stripped him naked, and split open his bowels.” This text is packed with action,
and it becomes something difficult to put down.
These three texts have different combinations of action, dialogue, and writing
styles, and you can plainly see how these combinations affect the reception of
the work. A work with all ornate writing style, and no dialogue and action is
enormously boring and difficult to read for pleasure alone, as with The
Federalist. A text with elaborate writing as well as a wealth of action becomes
much more interesting, as in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And a text
with both action and dialogue is certainly captivating, as in Narrative of the
Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. So it appears that through
the combination of action, dialogue, and writing style, it is not enough to have
one of these traits to make an entertaining work; in order to make a text
pleasurable, it must be written with at least two of these qualities.
