/lit/ - Literature

Does literary criticism have a purpose? If so, what is it? Does it affect society en masse, or are its effects isolated to an educated few? What do critics themselves argue?

Every book I pick up to read seems vapid and cliche, the characters unrelatable and unfleshed, the plot uninteresting and predictable

I... I can't enjoy reading anymore /lit/...


Am I becoming a literary critic?

Holy fuark I haven't been here in a while.
I see less of the ol' tripfags around here when I infrequently visit. As for me, I've been busy with school/friends/lifting/browsing other boards. In a way, I've "matured" past /lit/. The old trolling was fun..I enjoyed fall-winter 2010, when /lit/ was packed to the brim with Ayn Rand threads. Ah the good old days

I'm about to drop my first year and only intended university English course. I really do not like my TA, and especially her marking. The course itself will probably bring me down from a mid to high 3 to a high 2 GPA, and I find it the most useless course aside from my brilliant professor's simply stunning lectures. His class and the texts we read keep me drawn in.

All in all, I enjoy reading books, I fucking love cultural and social interpretations, but I cannot stand the marks, cannot stand my TA and cannot stand academic English, cannot stand literary criticism in general. Not only that, I find studying academic English is an utterly useless waste of time compared to philosophy or psychology or even history. I'd rather much just read books and enjoy the art and aesthetics in them rather than beat it senseless.

Convince me otherwise. Or convince me to do it. Anyone else basically said, fuck university English?

Is there a website like Rotten Tomatoes except for books?

>>1809691
Art is the aesthetic; literature appeals to the aesthetic, therefore literature is art.
I pulled that shit out of my ass.