Myself as a Literary Scholar

As a literary scholar, I have had a rather narrow focus.  I have a preference for reading the classics, particularly non-fiction.  I’ve enjoyed philosophical texts, such as Plato’s Republic and the Symposium, as well as historical texts such the The History of the Peloponnesian War, or Livy’s monumental History of Rome, even going so far as to teach myself Latin to better understand Livy’s ideas, or those of Cicero in Rhetorica ad Herennium.    Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly read such more modern classics as Great Expectations, or Robinson Crusoe (of which there is also a Latin version…), but they have certainly been no particular emphasis or effort to read them.    

Classical texts hold a certain appeal to me, a rather romantic notion in fact.  They’re old, incredibly old, and yet, despite the time and language of their writing, they remain not only relevant to today’s society, but often, are still incredibly valued (Rhetorica ad Herennium for example, is still widely used as a rhetoric textbook two-thousand years after it was written), and the fact that something that displaced in time can still be relevant and interesting really appeals to me.  In addition, they don’t just give out information about their subject matter, but give additional details about the societies that they were created in, from the social jabs of Cicero to the admiration towards government from Vergil.

The problem is though, outside of school, I’ve only ever read books for pleasure.  I have rarely made notes in a book I have read for fun, and more rarely still do I attempt to analyze the book for theme, or the author’s underlying intent, or the reasons he or she used this or that word or metaphor.  I suppose this makes my prior reading rather shallow, though, in my humble opinion, rather broad. 

The vast majority of my in-depth reading has been the result of school and literature classes therein, and as a result, the number of individual books I’ve read deeply and with critical thought are relatively few, outside of a few favorites (The Great Gatsby being one of them).  Despite my shortcomings in terms of volume, I feel that my skills in being able to devise what it is exactly that an author is trying to say, and analyzing the ways in which they say it, are quite developed, not to the level I hope to achieve through school this year, but at least sufficiently enough to begin with. 

My particular shortcoming, however, comes from poetry.  I have had little experience reading poetry, nor any particular drive to do so.  This is a deficiency I hope to overcome during this year.  The causes for this are varied, but result mostly from a lack of interest and exposure.  I have rarely had to deal with poetry for any extended period in school as of yet, and there are very few poems that have really caught my attention, though I am rather fond of “Invictus” and “If-,” especially the prior.  Unfortunately, I feel that this might be an issue for me, given especially that the AP test contains a very large amount of poetry questions.