/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1121073]

Sorry - not directly related to literature, this is more of a request aimed at this board's userbase:

If any of you are English Literature students at good universities, would you mind sending me your personal statement? I've been told contrasting things from different sources and I'd just like to go with someone that has actually got in to see what's safe.

Also I have no idea how to being, are quotes too lame?

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[Anonymous No.1121081]

get into uni on your own two feet

[Anonymous No.1121087]

>>1121081

:(

[Anonymous No.1121109]

anyone?

[TyBrax !WvWWh.l.CE No.1121119]

i didn't need to do a personal statement. all i needed to do was prove I lived in the area & i got in.

[Anonymous No.1121127]

>>1121119

I'm applying to Oxford I don't think that will work. Thanks though!

Okay as for a starting point I was thinking of talking about when I saw Love's Labours Lost at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall - is this too corny? In case you were wondering what's so cool about this theatre look at the attached picture. THE SEATS ARE CARVED INTO THE SIDE OF A CLIFF AND THE ONLY THING BEHIND THE STAGE IS WAVES its pretty fucking epic

[Anonymous No.1121129]

> mention your choices of A levels and how they reflect your decision to study English and how you are suited to the course, e.g. English Lit, Languag, History. Explained what you have learned and why it is relevant and qualifies you for the course.

> mention your wider reading habits and draw on reading you've done outside of your A levels (you have done some...right?) mention some higher level texts (mine included Paradise Lost and the Brothers Karamazov)

> talk about what this outside reading has taught you, in a similar vein to what your A levels have taught you, e.g. cultural and historical context, different styles of writing, underlying themes and symbolism ect.

> explain why doing the course would be beneficial to you, what you want from it and your reasons for doing it

[Anonymous No.1121151]

>>1121127
Cambridgefag here.
You're applying for a shitty English department, should come join us.

Word of advice though, mention heritage. Most universities don't like it, but with Cambridge and Oxford it has some clout. So even if it's not true, just say your Grandfather was an MP or some shit.

[Anonymous No.1121165]

>>1121151

I think my great-great-uncle was MP for Belfast in Irish Parliament? Maybe I should just say he was best buddies with Joyce? Also I really cba with changing plans now, I like the look of the course at Oxford. Plus, both my older sisters went to Cambridge and it'd be really lame if I did as well.

But yeah I'd rather not lie, I go to a grammar school that has been around since like the fifteenth century, that'll have to do on the heritage front.

Okay, as an opening to my personal statement, does anyone think this is too corny/pretentious/fucking gay? Or not enough?

"Watching Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Minack Theatre I reflected on the gravity of what I was experiencing – a message from Shakespeare four centuries old resonated just as profoundly today as it would have then, highlighting the fickleness of man’s aspirations and the underlying motives of love in his actions. That something could be so poignantly expressed with the English language confirmed in my mind the decision to study literature..."

All the replies are appreciated, thanks guys!

[Anonymous No.1121193]

you over-privileged cunts ITT make me sick

why did you reject me after the interview Oxford?

[Anonymous No.1121204]

>>1121193

Don't worry, that's what's going to happen to me as well. It happened to my dad. It will happen to me.

I do go to a state school though if that counts for anything.

[Anonymous No.1121215]

>>1121204
Blessing in duisguise, coming from a UK private schooler.

Private schools middle-classify you and tend to get you better grades, but you're always considered inferior to people from state schools who are your equal in grades.

Kind of sucks.

[Anonymous No.1121216]

"Watching Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” at the Minack Theatre I reflected on the gravity of what I was experiencing – a message from Shakespeare four centuries old resonated just as profoundly today as it would have then, highlighting the fickleness of man’s aspirations and the underlying motives of love in his actions. That something could be so poignantly expressed with the English language confirmed in my mind the decision to study literature, and since then I have made the effort to watch performances and read many of Shakespeare’s other plays including Othello, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth. (AT THIS POINT IT WOULD BE HANDY IF I’D READ SOME MARLOWE) I find these dramas particularly interesting as the issues they tackle are universally penetrating, and show the power of literature to remain timeless as an immortal message unhindered by context."

Going in the right direction? I was gonna talk about my A level subjects next.

[Anonymous No.1121221]

>>1121215

Yeah, it's a grammar school though, so I think a similar thing may apply - don't think it's quite as harsh as it is for public schools however. I'd rather not have gone to a public school anyway :3

[Anonymous No.1121228]

Don't talk about how much you love books, or how much you love to read. Talk about how you read and think out of a moral obligation, because you think there are important questions to be answered, and that the stakes our high. Also, don't pretend you know everything already, talk about your intellectual curiosity.

[Anonymous No.1121232]

>>1121216
Is this for grad school?

If so, that sucks. You're not applying to be a space cadet. You need teaching and research goals that are concrete and specific, with progress you've already made toward them.

[Anonymous No.1121235]

I would love to help you OP, but I'm a law/philosophy student at Glasgow university, so what would be good for me might not be good for you.

If you want my honest opinion, you should write with the focus on making yourself seem special, in a way, not just that you have an interest. Anyone can do 'I read X and I really identified with it' Try to push forward that you have the skills to excel in this degree(Previous successes? Maybe essay prizes even?) and instead of saying things like 'This strongly resonated with me' which is quite generic and uninteresting make it more personal and show some degree of independence of thought. Like, WHY that particular thing resonated, and what specifically made it brilliant.

As I said though, I'm not an English lit student, so don't take what I say too seriously.

[Anonymous No.1121236]

>>1121216

The greatness of Shakespeare isn't that the message is universal, timeless, and immortal, but that its peculiarly modern. If you think otherwise, you show yourself to be a sentimental book-work, and no one wants one of those in their engl. department.

[Anonymous No.1121265]

EVERYBODY IS BEING MEAN :'(

>>1121232
>>1121236

It's for an undergraduate course and that paragraph wasn't supposed to be an illuminating and wonderfully original summation of Shakespeare's work but show my enthusiasm for doing this kind of shit. Like, completely out of my school syllabus I've travelled over the country to see plays that I'm not going to be examined on, I'm doing this for fun BECAUSE I FIND IT FUN.

However, at the same time I don't want to seem like I think that I'm being clever when in reality I'm quite humble. I'm just trying to display my enthusiasm.

[Anonymous No.1121267]

>>1121232

Also this is a personal statement. My exam results are separate to this. If it means anything I got four As at AS level, and I'm looking at three predicted A*s for A2 - in English Literature, History and Maths Mechanics.

[Anonymous No.1121291]

>>1121216

You sound like a bender.

[Anonymous No.1121293]

>>1121267

I would make sweet love with your grades. <3

[Anonymous No.1121297]

>>1121293

Haha, thanks! <3

>>1121291

:'(

[Anonymous No.1121310]

>>1121297
How much work went into those grades - curious anon.

[Anonymous No.1121323]

>>1121310

Started revising a week or two before my first AS exam. Maths didn't really need too much revision, just did a few past papers and it kinda all came back to me - I'd forgotten the stuff from the beginning of the year.

History needed a lot of revision, proportionally a lot more than the other two subjects, though probably a lot less than some of my peers. I find it hard to get really high marks in history without a lot of preparation. The course syllabus is ridiculously wide as well and you have to know a lot of detail. However in the actual exam I ended up bullshitting a lot - I wrote an entire page on The Simpsons.

English is my strongest subject, I didn't really revise a lot. I thought the exam went pretty crappy, seeing as I was hoping to get full marks in it, but I got an A anyway and had full marks from the coursework so I can't exactly complain. I probably should have re-read the books before the exam.

[Anonymous No.1121327]

>>1121323

Oh wait, I also did physics. I hadn't really learnt anything all year because my teacher sucked. I knew a lot of the mechanics part of the course because of maths. I basically just read the CGP book a load. It doesn't prepare you well enough to get full marks or anything - you'd need the official edexcel book for that, but it was plenty along with past papers to get me a solid A.

[Anonymous No.1121330]

>>1121323

Which means that I should start revising, as I am doing A-levels in History, English & Psychology. Cheers for replying. =)

[Anonymous No.1121380]

I finished an English degree at Oxford this June. Most of the advice in this thread is very questionable. Heritage? Really? I suppose it depends on your college and your interviewer, but generally they won't give a shit.

What's important is showing them your ability, your enthusiasm, your curiosity, your energy. More than that, show them that you have actual opinions. If you mention an author try and say something about them. You don't need to go overboard, but have arguments, have ideas, have focuses. You could for example draw similarities between your favourite authors, or illuminate differences, or say "x is my favourite because he retains the y of z but without z's patronising contempt for a and b" or whatever. Show a confidence in grouping or distinguishing writers and traditions, a grasp of what makes writers unique, whatever. Just give the tutors something to grab a hold of in the interview and be prepared to argue the point with them: they may well come at anything you say from a weird angle that you hadn't considered.

[Anonymous No.1121386]

Your ‘personality’ etc is similar. It might be an asset, or they might not care. I will say that I was advised against bothering to appear a ‘well rounded person’. They don’t care if you’re well-rounded. They want you to be GOOD. “I'm not in the school orchestra, the drama society or the first eleven,” I wrote, deliberately making myself seem like a nerd who didn’t do too much other than read. When it came to interview, a tutor read this part out, and only half jokingly said it was exactly what they were looking for. Mention your achievements, but don’t dwell on them unless you have something to say about them. Similarly, there’s only so many times you can say “I am enthusiastic” or “I have a great passion for literature” – only so many times you can tell, rather than show.

[Anonymous No.1121381]

Alternatively, they may not. I was expecting a major grilling on my personal statement assertion that "the novel, and especially Dickens, arose symbiotically with the modern city" but it wasn't even mentioned. Similarly, I went so far as to claim that he portrayed "an often oppressive and horrifying society in which, despite caricature and moral outrage, nobody is demonised or dehumanised." I was fully prepared to concede that this wasn't always the case should they bring up the character of Krook in 'Bleak House', who is seemingly so evil that he actually explodes. They didn't challenge me, but it would have been fine if I had - I would have shown I wasn't afraid to raise ideas and then demonstrated flexibility and judgement in conceding their limitations.

While it's good to have such interests and be willing to speak up about them, don't worry about what they are. Some students go in having read very widely but shallowly. They do fine. Others freely admit to the interview that they have a huge interest in 19th century women's novels and that's all they read. They do well too.

[Anonymous No.1121393]

So show ‘em what you’ve got. But as another poster said, nobody is expecting you to know everything and it would be foolish to act as if you do. You’re going to Oxford TO LEARN THINGS. No shit you don’t know much yet. It’s all about your willingness and your talent; past reading and expertise is an indication of those things. Something that worked for me was admitting to gaps in my knowledge with a tone of enthusiasm, like “I don’t know much about literary theory but I’d sure like to!” It might work to acknowledge the difficulty of the course in a similar way. You’re ready for a challenge.

Needless to say, write well. This is English. Don’t seem like you’re mechanically going through the motions, don’t be dull OR purple, and avoid silly mistakes. Effectively anchor the general to the specific and the abstract to the concrete, but that link should go both ways. If you can work in smooth allusions to texts you’ve enjoyed, so much the better. Just don’t overdo it.

[Anonymous No.1121395]

Needless to say, write well. This is English. Don’t seem like you’re mechanically going through the motions, don’t be dull OR purple, and avoid silly mistakes. Effectively anchor the general to the specific and the abstract to the concrete, but that link should go both ways. If you can work in smooth allusions to texts you’ve enjoyed, so much the better. Just don’t overdo it.

All I can think of for now. Let’s look at your posted example paragraph:

THE GOOD:
- Nice clean prose style, eloquent but not too pretentious. Could shorten some sentences.
- Nice link of concrete to general – you make a positive arguable statement about the play.
- Using a specific performance you enjoyed is a good strategy. As you say it shows you bothered to go and see the damn thing and allows a smooth movement from specific observation to general point. You could perhaps do with just mentioning something that made the performance particularly appropriate (e.g. “on an outdoor stage with the ocean at its back”), which could also serve the purpose of unobtrusively explaining about the Minack if the tutor hasn’t heard of it (which is always possible).

[Anonymous No.1121400]

THE BAD:
- You are on dangerous grounds with your talk of universals and an ahistorical Shakespeare. Not too dangerous for a mere applicant – they may beat it out of you when you’re an undergraduate – but nevertheless problematic. Shakespeare is very history-dependent as well as seeming ‘eternal’, and his contemporary comrades in arms are similar – read the city comedies of Middleton and see how difficult they are for contemporary audiences to find funny (with all the slang and obscure terms and satire), or the plays of Marlowe (get on with it, they’re short) to see how few of his characters resemble anything a modern reader or viewer would call “rounded” or “deep”. You could also read ‘1599’ by James Shapiro for a demonstration of Shakespeare’s historicity and ‘Making Shakespeare’ by Tiffany Stern for how his plays are affected by Elizabethan/Jacobean stagecraft and acting practice.

It doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re wrong ( I think you are)But your statement will be stronger if you have an awareness of the problems with your own viewpoint. If you ARE going to say what you’re saying about Shakespeare you might have to be willing to argue it, rather than (as you seem to be) taking it as a given which everyone can agree on.

[Anonymous No.1121404]

One way of doing this would be to mention the counter-arguments. Acknowledge that there are some things that are highly specific but try to counter them (or show that they do not counter you) with your own examples. Marlowe will help you out because his plays are at once similar and very different from Shakespeare’s. Bill took M’s bombast and intense imagery but did something quite different with characters, so you could (for example) briefly look at the difference between Barabas in ‘The Jew of Malta’ and Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Alternatively, you could reach no conclusion - balancing these critics and their evidence against your own experience of being deeply and profoundly affected by the plays, asking how the historical and the eternal can coexist and saying how very bloody interested you are in finding an answer.

[Anonymous No.1121408]

Ultimately, disregard almost anything anyone tells you to do if you really genuinely think you can make it work. Personal statements are very different from each other and there’s a lot of scope for variety. The most important thing is to be genuine and be willing to give your own insights – always prepared to talk in the interview about anything you write down here.

Also say why you want to study English and why at such a high level. Duh.

[Anonymous No.1121413]

>Also say why you want to study English and why at such a high level. Duh.

Although (PS) "I really really enjoy it a lot" is probably a good enough reason. It's pretty much all I said to explain why I wanted to study literature rather than politics, history, philosophy, etc.

[Anonymous No.1121426]

>>1121404
Jesus Christ thanks! I guess I was trying to put across the reasons I like Shakespeare in order to show more enthusiasm. I was searching for a perhaps more formal way of writing that it's extremely interesting to watch a play that has the capacity to entertain peasants of old, like a bad Hollywood movie would today, yet at the same time has within it puns and beautiful poetry and ridiculously eloquent rhythm turned into a normal conversation. It's just that we don't have much like that today. I guess through writing this out to you now I can try and transfer that back to my personal statement, I think I lost some of my own meaning in trying to sound like the ideal part.

Is this any less 'wrong'? Also should I shy away from talking about reading outside of the British literature genre - I was going to talk about the relevance of studying history helping me to understand the international diplomacy of Sartre's "The Reprieve" - which at the same time gave me a chance to show off the fact that I read a book in which the author decides to change setting multiple times within a single sentence.

But yeah, I really appreciate the help, you wonderful person. Also, if you DID take the time to reply (you don't have to, it'd be amazing if you did, however), did you enjoy the degree?

[Anonymous No.1121429]

>>1121426

Wow this post makes little sense. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.1121447]

"I find it deeply compelling to study and enjoy drama (Shakespeare) that has the capacity to both provide entertainment to sixteenth century illiterate peasants yet retain such intense imagery and skilfully wrought poetic rhythm that contemporary scholars are convinced that it is not the work of but one man."

Okay, now can anyone tell me if there is anything glaringly wrong with this statement?

[Anonymous No.1121448]

>>1121447

wait, scratch the "sixteenth century", it's unnecessary and makes it flow weird

[Anonymous No.1121459]

>>1121265
But they're not looking for people who find reading or going to the theatre to be a 'fun' activity. If you become an English major because you love books, you're not going to learn that much more than you already know. Top schools like Oxford and Cambridge are looking for future scholars and critics, but people whose passion it is to read. Like I said earlier, they don't want someone for whom studying literature is pleasureable, they're looking for someone for whom studying literature is a serious activity on par with building an atom bomb or sending atoms through particle accelerators.

[Anonymous No.1121464]

>>1121459

Yeah to me that's just more fun. I don't think "fun" is a strong enough word. I planned my coursework essay the other day, and it was one of the most enjoyable things I've done in weeks - we get to use an anthology of critical readings on any text of our choice, and I've decided on examining the ways in which imagery is used to represent the perspective of the narrator in T.S Eliot's 'Prufrock. That was so fucking fun. The real moment I realised I wanted to apply for English literature was when I was at my sister's housewarming party next year. She'd just graduated from her medicine degree at Cambridge, so it was just me and her and all her friends from Cambridge. Basically I got pretty trashed but then realised I was talking about Kafka to English students, and having a fucking good time and couldn't care less about looking for weed or hitting on girls. But I don't think I could put that in my personal statement, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.1121469]

>>1121464

lol i said next year. i meant last year

[Anonymous No.1121484]

haaaaaaaalp pls

[Anonymous No.1121532]

WOAH 2700 CHARACTERS WRITTEN ONLY 1300 MORE

[Anonymous No.1121574]

>>1121459

Oxfag here.

>But they're not looking for people who find reading or going to the theatre to be a 'fun' activity.

Oh yes they are. My group were continually having to politely fend off offers from the tutors to come and stay with them in a cottage in Wales or some shit to do nothing but read for a week. "I can't think of anything more enjoyable," said one.

>If you become an English major because you love books, you're not going to learn that much more than you already know.

Oh yes you will. The Oxford course takes you through all but the last 100 years of English literature, era by arbitrary era. That encompasses Old and Middle English, as well as an entire paper of early modern literature where no Shakespeare is allowed (he gets his own unit). You're also compelled to study literary theory and to get a firm grasp of sociolinguistics and close language analysis, with all the terms of art. The latter is especially intense because most of the teachers who do it are very nasty and rigorous.

> they don't want someone for whom studying literature is pleasureable

Oh yes they do. You think they don't have fun? Again, my application rested a lot on enjoyment. "One of my greatest pleasures" began the second paragraph. And one tutor was very entertained by the phrase "I'm a big fan of Shakespeare." 'Fun' is not off the agenda as long as you don't make it look like it precludes a serious and rigorous approach. Obviously they want someone who 'takes things seriously' but seriousness is not the same as solemnity.

[Anonymous No.1121575]

>>1121574 (cont)

Anyone who becomes an academic does so because thinking their way through some textual problem, considering some dilemna, or binding together the disparate strands of an essay is enjoyable to them. It's like a drug - I've honestly encountered no better high. If you have a moment like the OP's party revelation, you know you're going in the right direction. I had my own the summer before I applied. Coming out of the English Literature exam, I slowly became aware that everyone else was bitching and complaining about how hard and mean and irritating the test had been. And at the same time I realised that while it had been hard, I'd enjoyed every second of it. I thought "right, well, if I'm going to do something for three years, it had better be English, then."

[Anonymous No.1121593]

>>1121165
Hrrmmm. You're not a Wisbech Grammar school student, are you?

[Anonymous No.1121597]

Look, if you really want to get into Oxford, this is what you need to realize. They are going to be looking at the quality of your argumentation, and your ability for having an intelligent discussion in the tutorial environment. "Intelligent" by their criteria doesn't mean "I like Shakespeare" or "I know who Shakespeare is"---it means "I know how to hold my own in an argument, by stating a conviction and being able to argue to back it up, with reference to relevant topics."

Seriously, if you want to learn how to get into Oxford, you could do worse than reading "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett (who was at Exeter), or watching the movie, and looking at the teaching methods of the new guy on the faculty. He encourages the students to take an outrageous stance on the issues and then learn how to back it up with aggressive argumentation.

In other words, it's a stronger approach to argue that the production you saw at the Minack proves that Shakesepeare is irrelevant, or to start off with an outrageous argumentative attention-grabber, like "The important thing to remember about Shakespeare is that he's dead and we're not." Then back it up by saying that the New Historicist school of Shakespeare criticism begins (with Stephen Greenblatt) with a "desire to speak with the dead". Provocation will get you farther than worthiness.

[Anonymous No.1121598]

>>1121426

>did you enjoy the degree?

Yes. It is a source of continual chagrin to the love of my life that she is only the joint best thing that ever happened to me.

I won't comment on what you said otherwise except that "peasants" might be a slightly inaccurate description of shakespeare's audiences. I'd also avoid generalisations about high and low culture when those terms didn't exist in the same way as they do now. But yeah it's one of the things I like about Shakespeare that he is viscerally intense as well as artistically.

Foreign literature isn't off the cards. Just don't spend too much time on it because ultimately you won't have much opportunity to study it on the course.

>>1121447

Apart from the peasant's song, the stuff about "poetic rhythm" and earlier "expressed with the English language" makes it seem a little like you don't realise these are plays. I'm not saying they have to be changed - after all, Shakespeare was a very good poet - but just keep it in the back of your mind that these are plays which were performed.

Incidentally a very good book on Shakespeare is 'Shakespeare: The Basics' by Sean McEvoy. Or possibly McAvoy. I think it's with an E though.

[Anonymous No.1121629]

>>1121593

No.

>>1121598

Got it, thanks! I was just trying to make it explicit that I'm not applying for a literature & theatre studies course. Seems like I need to be pretty careful with my word choice. I did change the word "peasants" to "illiterate", as I realised that's the defining aspect of what surprised me about that part of Shakespeare's audience. I couldn't care less about their actual social status. Thanks for all your help, I'll not take up any more of your time from now on, and bring problems to my form tutor at school. I think I'm going to talk about some extra curricular activities though - like reading poetry with the English department after school and drinking tea (I love how enthusiastic they get! Plus it's exposed me to a lot of Blake, Ted Hughes, etc.). I also ran an English club for students lower down the school who were qualified for the "Gifted & Talented" list in English - that was a bit of a fail actually, none of the kids were passionate at all, but it'll sound good and I'm applying to universities other than Oxford.

Anyway, thanks again!

[Anonymous No.1121641]

ITT: twelve-year-olds who need to put down the harry potter

[Anonymous No.1121678]

OP, you seem really passionate and I'm sure you'll do well earning your English degree.

However, I feel duty bound in these topics to suggest that you double major in something more pragmatic or earn a high school teaching certificate. Not sure how it is across the pond, but here in the states liberal arts degrees are risky.

I went to a state university for an English honors degree, finished it this May. I graduated summa cum laude, edited a literary magazine, had some poems published.

I still couldn't land a tutoring job. I moved back in with my parents, and am working on a high school teaching certificate at a regional college. It's gonna take another year & a half.

So be warned. As excited as you are about the experience now, realize college ends and you will have to get a real job. If you're thinking about being a career academic or humanities professor, realize that's about as likely as becoming a successful actor and makes absolutely no financial sense to do. I don't want to discourage you, but know what's coming.

Now's the time to plan your career. Have a specific job in mind.