My Reading Experience - Essay Example

Reading ExperienceI have liking for many authors such as William Golding, William Shakespeare, D. H. Lawrence, Charlotte Bronte, Iris Murdock, Arthur Miller and many more. I hope that I will be facilitated to read about more authors and literature with the passage of time. I really intend to read as many literary works as is possible because I have developed a good taste for literature reading. Some of the people try to read something about the literary work before starting it in actuality.

However, as far as I am concerned, I want to read every literary work without any biased opinion in my mind. It is due to this fact that I prefer to read the original work before getting into any kind of critical reading.With studying literature, the students get fair chances to read the literature of their choice as well as that literature that is likable by the educationists. It seems that a very well written literature is chosen for the students to read in order to make them active readers.

Reading is also a skill that one is able to perform after some learning. For reading literature, close reading should be there so that the internal values of a work can be extracted. The literary works should not be read with their surface meanings but they should be read with proper evaluation of language employed by the authors. The works should be read between the lines.There are many critical theories to approach literature such as Feminism, Psychoanalytic theory to literature, Formalistic approach to literature, Marxism and so on.

After gaining knowledge about these theories, I have tried to apply them on some works. By evaluating the language and style of the writer and by scrutinizing the intrinsic values of the work, the literary works can be seen in various lights. For example, while reading Hamlet, the Psychoanalytic theory to approach literature can be used in evaluating the delayed action taken by Hamlet and his mother’s and his association. In different critical theories, the critics have their own style of judgment and see different values in a work.

I have found Psychoanalysis the most interesting as the critics base their judgments on Freud’s defined concepts such as dream work, mother child association, Freudian slip and so on. I have found all these concepts quite interesting and while reading any literary work, I try to find some of the elements highlighted by Freud. Feminist critics try to judge the works according to representation of women by men and women writers and also evaluate the dominant relationships of men with women. The Marxist critics base their evaluation on the teachings of Karl Marx and they try to get to the deep meaning of a text in place of surface meaning and they look at the extrinsic values of literature along with intrinsic values.

I like psychoanalytic approach to reading literature because of Freud’s conceptualization of various human perspectives. I do not say that whatever he has recognized is true but everything looks interesting and makes one inquisitive. I want to read many works by many authors such as Emily Bronte, William Golding, Arthur Miller, Faulkner, Iris Murdock and so on.