My Apology

Lisa Meyer
November 24, 2008
English 300

Lisa Meyer's Apology


I must begin by saying that I am sorry. I am sorry for working towards a degree in English- Literature. I am sorry for loving literary works of all times and genres, for gaining insurmountable knowledge from various works of literature and English courses in general. Most of all, I would like to apologize to those not pursuing a major in English. It is a shame, to say the least that you are missing out on an abundance of knowledge the world has to offer you. I am saddened to see that you are not only blind to most literary works, but that you are ignorant in wondering what their value is.
The question of where I begin in my apology is overwhelming. Why am I an English major? Where am I going with this? My response to these questions came easily and quickly. I am an English major because it is the most valuable and rewarding major, in my opinion. It comes naturally to me just as “poetry should not come at all if it cannot come naturally.” (Keats) With literature I can go anywhere. One day I could be with Alice in Wonderland, the next I could be in The Emerald City with Dorothy; you’d be surprised where literature can take you. But right now, it doesn’t matter, I have books to read, knowledge to gain and an imagination to feed.
I suppose I shall begin with a thought I have regarding Keats’ chambers in which the individual begins to form. The first being the “thoughtless chamber”, the second being the “chamber of maiden”. I feel as though peers in other departments are stuck in the “chamber of maiden”, this dark chamber. The “chamber of maiden” is a chamber of “heartbreak, pain, sickness and oppression” in which our peers are constantly trying to walk through the mist to discover the mystery (Keats). The mystery is hidden beyond this chamber. I like to think of the English majors as the mystery, an exciting thought I would say.
As an English major I am aware of how I can make my work and the work of others everything, while allowing myself or the artist to become nothing. This idea of negative capability, also an idea presented by Keats, allows us to appreciate the work itself. My peers do not know how to make their work everything, perhaps because they are not willing to become blank, nothingness. I find it intriguing that if I asked my friend to name one very famous playwright who captures negative capability with outstanding skill, they’d be thunderstruck. Needless to say, they would not even be able to tell me what negative capability is. Had they given the thought to absorb a fragment of knowledge from Keats, they’d have no trouble.
To have the experience of becoming breathless and one with literature is not only a unique experience, but one you must come to appreciate. Only English majors can accept the fact that, yes, we can become “high on literature.” We can allow art, music and literature to become one with us, to enter our soul and awaken every emotion inside of us. This is a poetic, dreamlike and imaginative experience. There is a sort of ecstasy when indulging in a piece of literature. How on earth is an individual able to experience the divine if they do not immerse themselves in literature?
Following the path of English- literature has taught me to look beyond what is right in front of me. There is the surface of things and then there is the center of things. I am now able to look past the veil, to realize what literature has to offer me. This is what I call my very own apocalypse. The unveiling of my life, my path to the future through majoring in English- literature has all become a moment of unveiling, a moment of truth. While others may not be able to look beyond the veil and accept the truth that English- literature is constructive and inspiring, I am. Perhaps they don’t even see the veil as I and my fellow peers studying English do.
As a lover of English, literature and language I have found that figure of speech is extremely important. Language is essential and highly valued by those who are aware of its importance. Rhetorical expressions are widely used among those of us in the English department and usually not understood by those involved in other departments. The fact that these rhetorical expressions are overlooked and incomprehensible to others is upsetting, yet quite humorous. Figures of speech make life more interesting and are able to create a magnificent world of comedy, tragedy or irony.
The ability to answer a complex question such as “what is literature?” can be daunting, though it is simple; literature is what it is, exactly what is says. My peers very successfully display the age of chaos, one of Vico’s concepts. This age of chaos represents the language of jibberish. We are all a part of the age of chaos, but there are some that represent it best. Those would be students in other departments whose vocabulary consists mainly of “like”, “dude”, “awesome” and “cool”. I would like to point out that students in departments such as engineering are stuck in the age of men. This age consists of economic language and language in commerce.
As an English major you often get asked the question of “Why read it if it won’t impact you?” or “What’s so important about it?” As these words reach my ears and I process them, my mouth drops. All literature impacts you in some way; you gain a new experience, point of view and knowledge. A new world is presented to the reader, a world of magic. Literature allows you to live in another world to the extent that you allow it, as if you are given the experience of another life. Do textbooks for statistics or economics provide you with this experience? Doubtful.
This new life experience can be very imaginative, yet Don Quixote has provided a sort of cautionary tale. While we can read literature, love it and live within it, we must be careful how much we let it control our life. Not only do those of other departments miss out on brilliant literary works, but baby name ideas. Mythos, ethos and dianoia are more than just baby name ideas; they are major components of tragedy. I urge you to set out on an adventure of your own. Confound others by being didactic. I guarantee you will enjoy the challenge and the experience.
Before I conclude my apology, I would like to add a few things. First, when describing this idea of apologizing for choosing and pursuing an English major my friends were astonished. They’d respond, “That’s so sad.” But truly it is not sad; it is thrilling, exciting and particularly engaging. On the other hand, my mother is ecstatic that I am apologizing. In fact, she can’t wait to get her hands on this piece of work. The various reactions are entertaining to me, my apology has shone a new light on many aspects of my life.
All of this knowledge I have gained I apologize for. With all my heart and soul, I apologize for being an English major. I apologize for all these things, but must also point out that if you were bored with this clearly you are the boring one. Also, if my apology is read and the reader is left with a feeling of depression there is either something wrong with me or them. I blame the reader. Lastly, I consider this to be my remembrance of English and the reason I chose it as my major, as my future. Before an individual of another department judges me or my fellow English majors, I hope they think twice because my rhetorical rebuttal will leave them stumped. They will be confounded. I leave you with this apology and that is it; no more and no less.

My Touchstone- Reinvented!

I was looking through my touchstone blog...sure, those passages are great and motivating, but what novel have I read that I think of constantly? Siddhartha! I read Siddhartha for the first time a few years ago for high school. I read it so quickly- then read it again, and again...still, I read it!

If you have never read Siddhartha, I highly recommend it! It is by far one of my favorites!

Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, lives in India and struggles with his spiritual identity. His religion should allow him happiness, wisdom and peace, but it doesn't. He always feels that something is missing from his life. Siddhartha takes a journey to achieve enlightenment. This journey takes him through many religions and ways to achieve enlightenment including fasting, prayer, meditation and his connection with nature.

This whole entire book could be my touchstone, but here are a few of the most noteworthy passages:

"One must find the source within one's own self, one must possess it."
~SIddhartha is a strong believer that in order to find the truth one must go through many experiences. The truth lies within those experience. To be able to seek out the truth though one must "possess" the ability to experience and immerse one's self in their own life as an individual. It seems for Siddhartha that truth and happiness are very much related.


"All this had always been and he had never seen it; he was never present. Now he was present and belonged to it. Through his eyes he saw light and shadows; through his mind he was aware of moon and stars"
~ Siddhartha has a significant connection to nature- largely through the religion he grew up practicing. Though he had this connection with nature, he never truly saw the beauty in it. Living with minimal material throughout his journey, Siddhartha begins to see the beauty innature and appreciates the aesthetic value of it. The beauty of nature becomes central to the novel, Siddhartha's life and his search for truth and beauty.


This love of nature and beauty reminded me of the "3 apologists" that we read (Arnold, Pater, and Shelley). This idea of beauty first brought Shelley to mind because he is such a romantic. Siddhartha is very poetic and his search for truth and beauty is very intriguing.

~Illusion and Reality~

I googled illusion and reality and quite honestly was a bit overwhelmed with the results it came up with. I was puzzled as to where to start. Wiki was the one I turned to. One thing I discovered was that Reality and Illusion is a movie having to do with a multiple personality disorder. Interestingly enough, guess who came to mind? None other that Don Quixote himself. I thought of him because of the many stories he believes himself to be living in. He is simply Don Quixote, yet also a knight. He sees "battles" or "events" in which he needs to help people, but is he really helping? So, I found this very interesting that I could somehow connect Don Quixote to this documentary film made in 1999 dealing with multiple personality disorder.

I then looked further into Wikipedia to find that in Indian religions, "Maya" is an illusion, but also has many other meanings as well. I was very fascinated by this. Maya is also "the principal deity who creates, perpetuates and governs the phantasmagoria, illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe."(Wiki) Apparently, it may also be a sort of representation of truth. As I googled Illusion, I found many of the results dealt with philosophy.

Reality, as wiki puts it is "the state of things as they actually exist." Philosophically, reality is "nothingness". Poetry immediately came to mind when I read the definition of reality. Poetry is similar to reality in the sense that it is what it is. Also, the fact that reality is nothingness brought to mind Keats' idea of negative capability, when the artist becomes NOTHING, so the work becomes EVERYTHING.

The idea of illusion and reality could become rather complex, but perhaps if we look at it simple as what it is rather than what it "could be" we can make sense of it. Then again...is reality simple? Hmmm....this is something to ponder as my week-end comes to an end!

My Touchstone

The one book that comes to my mind often is Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture". There are so many touchstones for me throughout this book. It was impossible for me to put it down! Passages became stuck in my head- I would randomly think of them and smile! Bad days, happy days, these passages made a difference! I cannot pick just one and if I could post the whole work on here, I would! Some that strike me most:



"Wow, this is the epitome of a person appreciating this day and this moment."
~ This passage simply refers to seeing someone with a smile on their face, enjoying life and the moment they are in! I immediately thought of Walter Pater and the idea of living in each moment because there will never be another like it- living for each pulse. To see someone appreciating the finite moments they have in life is like a breath of fresh air. A person appreciating life and the beauty within it really is an epitome, but sometimes we are blind. We do not always take notice of these epitomes. But if we break out of our daily routine, we will see the epitomes we never had before!


"So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know how much I'm enjoying it...That's the way the rest of my life would need to be lived.."
~This also reminds me of Pater. Indulge in the arts of life and love every moment of it!


"...The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people."
~ I laugh when I read this now because sometimes I feel as if this class is a lot of work. I think to myself "I will never get it all done!" Thinking about this passage though...ya know what! If I want to get it all done and do well, I WILL! So, needless to say, the workload of the semester is my brick wall, at least for the time being. Just a wall though.

Perhaps, these are more words of encouragement, words of wisdom, but these are the words that spoke to me. Siddhartha is a novel that also presents many touchstone moments of which I shall add soon!

*VICO- Central Idea*

This is the one central phrase I would like to emphasize while representing Giambattista Vico:

"Truth itself is constructed"

This quote from Vico states that truth is socially constructed. Vico's theory of knowledge all leads up to this one quote. Truth is verified by creation, not observation.

Matthew Arnold- "The study of Poetry"

Matthew Arnold takes a very interesting approach to the study of poetry in the way that he realtes it to religion, or rather makes it into a religion. Arnold also believes that poetry is a "world of illusion, of divine illusion." This notion is very poetic and really hit me as believable. Peotry is a divine world in itself because of its beauty and also because there is so much life wrapped up in poetry.

Poetry is ideas, love, experience...poetry is every component of life. I enjoyed Arnold's metaphor- poetry as a stream. Poetry is constantly moving and ever changing. Each stream is a new experience, but Arnold thinks that no matter which stream we choose to follow, our thought(s) on poetry should stay the same. We should think of it "worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it."

Some of Arnold's ideas seem a bit extreme, but I cannot help but attempt to take in everything he says. For example, in his discussion of philosophy, science, etc. he implies that soon they will not mean anything and that what they have to say is false without poetry. Also, "the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize 'the breath and finer spirit of knowledge' offered to us by poetry."

I then came across this idea of "Charlatanism", which I had no idea what it was. So, searching online i came across the definition from thefreedictionary.com. According to that site, it is "a person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud." It is said that in poetry charlatanism has no entrance. I am still pondering this idea.

Poetry is thought and art, combined- working together.

Walter Pater's Conclusion

Walter Pater's conclusion from "The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry" was very short, but also very intriguing. He takes an indepth look at physical life and how it is affected by each moment we are living, each pulse we are giving. The way to make the most of these moments is to immerse ourselves in art and poetry.

Scientifically, our physical life is composed of many elements, "our physical life is a perpetual motion of them...processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary forces." To me, this means that science gives credit to just the physical life of what keeps us living to a certain extent, but it does not give show any notion of what else keeps us breathing...passion!

Pater's idea of "inward world of thought and feeling" is poetic in the way that he describes experience. It is "a drift of momentary acts of sight and passion and thought." Experience is defined as "a group of impressions" that really strike us during the experience. Each moment has its own impressions, senses and those moments are limited.

Passion is key in making the most of our limited moments, "a counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life." Forming habits in our everyday life may be a failure, according to Pater because we miss out on other experiences if we are always doing the same thing, not paying close enough attention.

One of my favorite passages from Pater's conclusion is:
"To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
~Pater gives a very concise and simple definition of life. All that we must do is burn with passion inside. A passion for life. A passion for new experiences. A passion for the things which give us passion...the things that keep the fire aglow.

Pater also believes that "instruments of criticism" help us to make the most of our experiences by paying greater attention to things. It helps us to see the things that we may not see throughout our life and experiences. Most importantly, Pater believes that the wisest people experience this passion "in art and song". Art gives life to the senses, "for art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake."