English Honours is a course that doesn’t just teach you literature but pushes you to truly dissect the text, ultimately challenging your perceptions and changing your personality.
English Honours is one of the most sought-after courses and rightly so not just because of the poise and poshness surrounding it, but also because it alters your perspective and outlook towards life. It makes you wiser and modifies you for the better. Here are three ways in which it accomplishes all of that:
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It teaches you the plurality of truth
English Honours will make you look at a situation from all perspectives. It will not tell you which perspective is right or wrong because the course is built with the understanding that everything is subjective. Through this one learns to move beyond their opinion and understand the point of view of the person sitting across the table. This further makes one think wholesomely before coming to a decision.
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It encourages you to ask ‘Why?’
English Honours will not let you settle with ‘it is what it is’ when discussing ideologies. It will make you question why is an ideology the way it is, why is a certain remark was made, and why was it made by the person it was made by. It entices the student to delve into the things that won’t be said openly. In your lectures you’ll question why is astronomy considered against God in ‘Doctor Faustus’, why does eventually it glorify the perspective of idealism over materialism, was Macbeth really overambitious or just a slave to feudalism, etc. These stories cannot be separated from the dominant, emergent, and residual ideologies of the time they were written in. Therefore, it teaches you as a person to not take anything at face value and to question everything. As this inquisitiveness becomes a part of your personality, you also begin to look for the underlying causes of the behaviour of the people.
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It teaches you the importance of history
English Honours teach you that everything in the world today that has ever existed, exists, or will exist is rooted in history and cannot be independent of it’s past. Furthermore, while reading the translated texts, one learns the history of different places. Therefore, etymology doesn’t only help the students understand the different spellings of a word over time, but also talks about why the word acquired it’s meaning in the first place. For example, Rakshash is derived from Rakshak, meaning protectors. The term was actually used for the tribes that wanted to ‘protect’ the forests by scaring away the Brahmins who used it for Hawans. English Honours doesn’t just expand your vocabulary, it also expands your vision and teaches you that meanings move beyond dictionaries.
Feature Image Credits: Louve Smith
Khyati Sanger
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