When I was 15, a friend told me that I should become the president of Book Addicts Anonymous. When I was 16, I decided I wanted to write poetry and study literature for the rest of my thinking life. By the time I was 17, people had begun to wonder when I would change my mind.
I’m 18 now and I still haven’t. I’m a college senior with a triple major in piano performance, mathematics and, of course, English. As so many college students know, nearly every journey away from campus, no matter the destination or duration, raises that question so many of us learn to dread: “What are you planning to do after you graduate?” When I reply that I intend to pursue two separate graduate degrees in English and seek a position as a professor of literature or creative writing, America responds, as it has been taught to do, with skepticism. In this grand scheme of science and progress, what good is poetry? Really, how useful are the arts to the people of the twenty-first century?
Actually, literature and the arts are more important now than ever and will only become more valuable to our culture as time goes on. The reason is simple. Our world is, as many skeptics say when questioning the decision to study English, expanding fast. Technology ushers us into the worlds and thoughts of wider and wider groups of people, creating new communities, cultures and customs of its own while bringing a growing number of communities, cultures and customs from the “real world” to our attention, our conversations and our influence. Instant awareness of an entire group, though, doesn’t necessarily mean instant understanding of that group, and the images thrown at us, especially on the internet, are often flat, exaggerated, and impersonal. Even as they open the doors to the world, they prevent us from really exploring what’s outside.
Many people tell me that it’s only logical to pursue an education and a career in science and technology. After all, that’s what the world is doing and to survive in the world you have to work where it needs you. They have a point, and for some people, rushing to help the science speaking world in their door-opening efforts is great. They build progress. They are a great help to the world. But here is my question: if everyone joins in opening the floodgates for the mixing of cultures, who is left to manage and harmonize the results of each step forward?
Consider for a moment the heavy weight of misunderstandings between large groups of people. Now ask yourself: what has the power to break through those walls? For generations, that work has been done by literature and the arts, which let us see the world, and ourselves, through the eyes of individual people from the other side.
Slave narratives began to open the eyes of the white world to the struggles of African-Americans and helped to grow the roots of the civil rights movement. Music and the words that crystallized it later brought African-American voices to a more equal plane in American media, literature, and popular culture. Hundreds of literary journals are forever seeking out work by members of minority groups, hoping to bring their voices, their hopes, and their humanity to the spotlight. Musicians offer a language that transcends translation. Artists show us beauty from the angles we can’t reach ourselves. Poets crystallize and humanize each moment as they live it, giving individual voices to every crowd, and when all we see are caricatures, voices are exactly what we need to hear. In a world where community often becomes conformity and hyperbole runs rampant, these gifts are precious and need to be protected—they’re certainly not worthless.No, my major doesn’t have the most financially stable future. Yes, many people think it would be better for me to pursue graduate work in math. But am I failing to make myself useful to society by studying literature? I don’t think so.
This article is the first of a series entitled Letters From An English Major. Please stick around for the next one!
