Musings on Great Expectations and literary study

SimonM · Black Bloc

You know how sometimes when you're writing an essay, you fully realise that something you want to put in is irrelevant and even indulgent - but you're damn well going to put it in anyway?

I'm just finishing off my essay on Dickens' "Great Expectations". I'm a second year Physics student really, but do English Lit as an extra module. Despite leaving this essay ridiculously close to the deadline (midday tomorrow) and being fairly stressed about the whole situation gven the other deadlines I've got in my "real" course, it's really hit home anew tonight what a fantastic book Great Expectations really is and how perfect some of the characterisation is. It's hard not to express this in the essay, when I should be sticking rigidly and objectively to the question I'm answering like a good little English student.

Actually, once I drifted away from the essay as an assessment exercise and immersed myself in the novel itself, the final third of the essay materialised on the screen in no time. If only I could do that for course material less close to my heart.

Sorry for the random musings. I'm not really sure why I wrote that, or why I'm posting it. No doubt I'll think it's silly in the morning, as you will when you read it. I think I've realised that I love novels far too much to be writing essays on them.

What larks!

Simon
3.34am

Edit: Stupid board cutting off the end of my subject! Should have been "Musings on Great Expectations and the nature of literary study"...

steven · Black Bloc

Good luck with the essay - English essays can be quite fun once you've got the hang of the conceptual stuff, which allows you to just read loads of novels and poems and call it a degree.

SimonM · Black Bloc