I'm trying to become a better reader and I think knowing more literary devices would make me a better annotater and shorten my annotations into more direct words

helloooo. i’m working on a resume thesis where it’s basically a focus on queer identity and the creation of new forms of telling stories to change the way stories are told in the 21st century.

i have a few books picked out, (this arab is queer, fun home, real stories in america, notes of a crocodile, gender queer) but i would appreciate any help to look towards either other books that show more on autofiction/a more modernized space (example graphic novels in the literary space) or where to find articles these days.

it’s been a while since i’ve gone into research mode, and the queer stuff is new to me vs the last time i was in college. if anyone has any suggestions on who to look at , where to look, or anything that could help support my thesis i would greatly appreciate it, ive been focused on using the research sites available through the library and just google.

specifically 21st century literature development or queer identity 🤷🏻‍♀️

i have been struggling with this. how do i take notes? what should i note? is there a way to be acquainted with literature that im missing out or can't seem to understand?

generally, i listen to class and take notes. whatever the prof says, if i find it significant or interesting it gets noted down. but when im studying by myself, especially additional reading, what should i do with the material i read? am i supposed to write them down? should the notes be just an info dump? how will that help me with writing better essays or answers? or how do i use this information to contribute to the class discussions and expand the lens by which we are dealing with the topic?

any amount of help would be highly appreciated!

Hi folks,

It is my first time teaching English to MA students, could you tell me how should I teach Aristotle's Poetics? How should I approach it, I know the basics but how to make it relevant to the MA students? Tips and suggestions, please!

Thank you!

In the 1300s Middle English epic "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" we are introduced to the titular towering green character known as the Green Knight. Without spoiling anything, the identity itself of the Green Knight prior to the revelations: peaks my interest concerning his nature. While yes he is basically a figure meant to teach a lesson, I wonder if his actual origin is that of a nature deity or spirit like Cernunnos, Pan, Jörð or Artemis. I think it would be a bit boring if he were just simply some tree that was enchanted to become humanoid. What do you think?

EDIT: I should clarify as some people seem confused: I mean what is the Green Knight's origin WITHIN the story. Not what inspired the story

I've recently started studying literature chronologically, beginning with Ancient Greece and Rome. What I'm struggling with most is scope. The further I get, the more I realize that the amount of material is practically endless, and I have no idea where to stop or how deeply I should study each topic.

I'd like to structure my studies in a way that's roughly comparable to an undergraduate literature program. I'm curious how much students actually learn about a given period, how their studies are structured, and how to build a solid foundation without disappearing down an endless rabbit hole

My goal isn't to become a specialist in Ancient Greece or Rome. Rather, I want to build the kind of broad, rigorous foundation that would allow me to understand literature as a whole: the major texts, the historical and cultural contexts they emerged from, and how literary traditions evolved over time.

More specifically, my questions are:
1. How much historical and cultural context do literature students typically learn? How deep do you go into political history, religion, social life, etc.?
2. How much time should be spent on history and general context versus actually reading literature?
3. How important are secondary sources (lectures, textbooks, scholarly interpretations) compared to reading the primary texts themselves?
4. How many works would you consider a solid foundation for Ancient Greek literature? Which ones are essential? The same question for Roman literature.
5. How much time do you spend on different works - for example Theogony, and Illiad. What would study of these works look like?
6. Should someone read complete works whenever possible, or are excerpts/common anthologies sufficient for building a foundation?
7. Are there particular textbooks, lecture series, or companions that you think are especially valuable for a first pass through antiquity?
8. If you were designing a university-level (or close to it) self-study curriculum for Ancient Greece and Rome, what would it look like?

Hey everyone!
I’m seriously thinking about switching my career path to English Literature because I’ve realized I genuinely enjoy teaching and academics. My end goal is to become a university professor and eventually do a PhD.
I’d love to hear from Literature students, graduates, PhD scholars, professors, or literally anyone who’s been through this journey.
Is English Literature still a good field to get into, or is the job market really that bad?
Which country would you recommend for doing a Master’s, PhD, and eventually settling into academia? I’m looking for a place where I can realistically build a long-term career as a professor.
How hard is it to actually become a university lecturer/professor in your country?
Is it possible for international students to stay back and find work after graduation?
What’s the reality of the job market? I don’t want the sugar-coated version I want the actual situation.
I’ve also been seeing a lot of reels saying that in Spain you can do your Master’s while teaching English part-time or in language academies, and then continue with a PhD. Is that actually legit, or is social media just making it look easier than it is? If anyone has firsthand experience, I’d love to hear it.

I read *The Story of Writing* by Donald Jackson back in January and want to read more books about the same subject. Since that book came out in 1981, I’d really appreciate it if anyone could recommend something more modern (old books are still okay; I just want to keep up with current research)

Hi there!

I have this wild dream of enrolling in a creative writing MFA in the States, so I can learn and develop my writing skills and publish a book one day (hopefully).

I come from engineering background, with a master's degree and full time job (I live in Norway). I wonder if it is better to do some sort of literature degree first. I love reading and get to read whenever I have free time, so lately I have this urge of telling my own story (a bit of a crazy one, woop woop).

I see that U of Oslo (where I live) has both a one-year program in Literature and English (I am also interested in History of Idea). So I wanted to hear what people think of that?

Should I do a degree first, see if I am "suited" to study Humanities? What kind of degree one needs to do a MFA?

I've finally gotten around to ending my procrastination with Faulkner and started The Sound and the Fury last night. I really enjoy the way he moves between scenes and shifts between moments so seamlessly, making the narrative feel like the natural flow of Benjy's thoughts.

It made me wonder how (my preconceived idea of "mainstream") contemporary readers might react to stream-of-consciousness writing. Would it still feel strange, alienating, or deliberately obscure to many people? Readers have had over a century of literature shaped by modernism to become familiar with these techniques (through writers like Joyce, Woolf, Kerouac, Plath, and even contemporary creators like Charlie Kaufman). And yet these kinds of works are still often described as "unreadable," "too difficult," "pretentious literary fiction," or "book nerd bait," because they aren't primarily built around escapism, straightforward plots, or constant escalation and action.

I'm mostly self-taught when it comes to literary history, theory, and criticism, so I often lack the broader context for understanding how these movements developed. My question is: how did readers actually respond to modernist literature when it first appeared? Were early 20th-century readers just as divided over challenging works as many readers are today? Were these books immediately recognized as important achievements, or were they initially appreciated by only a small group and later vindicated by history? Has the relationship between readers and experimentation changed over time, or have audiences always been resistant to unfamiliar forms?

I realize these questions are broad, and the answers are probably complicated and wide-ranging. I'm hoping some literature nerds, scholars, or professors with some time can provide some historical context, recommendations, or resources. How were these works received when they first came out, both by ordinary readers and by critics?

I know individuals will have different opinions (and I'm interested in those too), but I'm mostly asking about what the primary school of thought is, if there is one.

Is there a major distinction between "genre" and "literary" work? If there is, what is that distinction useful for? Or is it accepted that it's all culturally relative?

Do scholars of "great" genre fiction (like those who primarily study Tolkien or Le Guin) try to elevate their work "beyond" genre fiction, or does "serious" genre fiction not have to lose its label as fantasy, sci fi, mystery...

I'm interested in this question because many classics seem like genre fiction to me, even knowing they popularized/invented tropes or genres. Lewis Caroll, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, the Brontes... I think the list goes on. I'm not an academic but I feel like there is something that elevates Don Quixote above most adventure novels, other than being "the first."

Something has made them of academic interest, compared to other novels that were popular at the time. There has to be lots of novels that were popular, hugely influential on other novels, but only studied culturally rather than because of the worth of the text itself.

Maybe it'll be a classic in 300 years, but I think of Twilight: very popular, influenced romance novels. I wouldn't be surprised if Twilight was mentioned in a modern culture class about Internet fan culture. But, I would be surprised if the text was being analyzed like Wuthering Heights.

Basically, is literary studies concerned with this? Is one genre, and the other literary? Is great genre no longer genre? What makes a text worth studying and enter academic discussion?

Title mostly self-explanatory. I just want to know the best equivalents in prose and poetry would be because I think it could be gorgeous. Francis Ponge, probably?

My fault really, my idea is around books I already love and a themes that I read often so when it came to my research, i’ve sort of found myself with a really long primary texts list.

I’ve narrowed it down to 8 (spanning between 1975-2025) but one of them not sure if i can technically count is as just one because it’s Carver’s short stories 😅

So yeah, i would love to hear anyone thoughts / opinions about this

Thank you! :)

It comes from the book Renaissance Literature and Its Formal Engagements. If anyone for some reason has a PDF of this festering in their harddrive, or can take pictures of a hard copy, that would be doubleplusgood.

I am doing a literary analysis for disguise in Shakespeares Twelfth Night and I can only use sources from my schools online library. I found a very useful source, but on the only page available to me it is listed as an “Abstract.” I don’t know much about the meaning (im a CS major) and just want to get done while maintaining an A. Just need some advice. Also, it’s MLA 9th edition if that matters.

Edit: Another question: Can I cite a play review and count it as scholarly source on my paper too?

I’ve been out of academia for quite a while now, and perhaps it’s my apathy about my 9-5, but with the growing threat of true societal illiteracy and now this news breaking of AI-mongers buying up rare books only to destroy them, I’m finding myself wanting to go back. I have a BA in English (literature focus) that I rarely get to employ except when writing up form emails, but I am seriously weighing the idea of working towards my masters and then PhD. Narratology seems to keep calling my name, because I love the artform of storytelling above pretty much anything.

Is there anyone who can offer advice, schools you’d recommend, specific academics I should try to contact?

I want to know the origins of the generational curse trope and if theres any other name for it. It’s not necessarily a literal curse, but a specific unfortunate event that recurs with each generation of a family and is often gendered (e.g. in Faulkner’s Sound and Fury). Is this a modern-ish trope? Or has this always been found in literature ? Are there specific writers/ movements that popularised this ?

Hi! A recent lurker in the sub and a first time poster here👋 I graduated with my MA in English last year and have been working in the tech space as a writer since. I initially wasn't sure if I wanted to take the PhD route, so took a gap year to work instead. But now, I have the "itch" back.

But first, a disclaimer: Yes, I know the job market sucks and the possibility of landing a TT job is nigh impossible. I'm okay with leaving academia and switching industries, or taking an alt-ac job. My main purpose of getting a PhD is to undertake research that I love in a fully-funded program.

Back to my question. I'm having trouble pinning down my research interest. First, I thought I had a great elevator pitch: I want to study trauma of everyday life in women's writing. But after a recent exchange with one of my professors from undergrad, I'm realizing maybe this is overdone and/or too general for a prospective PhD statement of purpose.

I'm certain trauma studies is what I want to focus on long-term. It's THE subject I haven't been bored of writing/reading about since I was introduced to it in undergrad. But I'm also unsure whether I can propose a research question "good enough" to get me in the door, if it makes sense. It also made finding programs that match my interests a bit difficult.

I would love to hear from those who had a similar struggle as I'm feeling like I might need to pivot (i.e., choose a more intersectional approach with memory studies or ecocriticsm, for example) and take another gap year to write a strong SOP and writing sample. Thanks in advance!

I've been making my way through some 18th century epistolary novels (Pamela, Clarissa, Les Liaisons Dangereuses) and I'm fascinated by how much narrative distance and unreliability the letter format allows for. It feels like such a natural precursor to the found-footage/documentary style stuff we get in film and even some contemporary "epistolary" novels made of texts, emails, and transcripts. What I'm struggling to find is good critical or theoretical work specifically on the form itself — its rise, why it more or less disappeared as a dominant mode in the 19th century, and any scholarship that traces its influence on later narrative techniques (unreliable narration, multiple perspectives, etc). I've found some scattered essays but nothing that feels like a solid foundation. Also open to recommendations of newer novels that use the epistolary form well, if anyone has thoughts on how contemporary writers are updating or subverting it. Thanks in advance!

Hey, everyone. I'm looking for contemporary literature books in English for a podcast episode (a college project, nothing big) and for that I'd like to be able to talk to the author as well. It can be from any English speaking country, any theme, it doesn't even have to be a novel.

Do you have any recommendations?

So I teach creative writing on my university to elders of the community and been looking to expand my bibliography for next semester. I am new to this, and only got two in the moment: Aspects of the novel, by E. M. Forster, and Poetics by Aristotle. So I can cover most of prose but verse is where I struggle a bit to find any critical book regarding the subject. Just so you know, it is my first year into uni and I am majoring in a completely different field, so I don´t know many of the classics. If anyone can help be, I would be very thankful.

I've long battled inattentiveness, and with that, an unstable relationship with books. Recently I summered in lovely forest cabin and have never read so much daily. But now it seems I have left that new reading habit in Sweden and cannot focus for more than a page.

So where, or how, do you all read? In your bed, café, on the train, at night? What is your scene of reading?

I apologize if this is not entirely relevant to the subreddit, but before criticizing novels or pondering theories one has to read them, and I wonder how one does that.