Whenever I tell people that I’ve declared as an English major, the most common response is “oh, so you must be like… deep then, huh?” Most of the time to avoid a long conversation and to remain polite I simply respond with “Yep, I’m pretty deep.” I normally don’t tell people the real reasons that I’m an English major. These reasons don’t exactly make sense to a lot of people.
The real reason I’m majoring in English goes beyond that I plan on attending law school after my four years at Geneseo. It goes beyond the fact that I simply like reading. The reason lies in the points made in Joe Moran’s Interdisciplinarity. That is that English has a method just as science and math do. In the same way, there is a certain aspect of art in math and science.The biggest similarity and the thing that brings these disciplines together is the way they evolve. The disciplines evolve by building upon work done in the past. Authors of verse or prose are often worried about originality. In math and science, building upon the work of those in the past is encouraged. I’d argue that language and literature evolves in the same way.
There is a correct way to write and express thoughts. There are methods to writing prose and verse. These methods are products of people who have paved the way in the English discipline. Ralph Waldo Emerson (in my opinion, one of the trail blazers) said “All my best thoughts were stolen from the ancients.” Originality is often something that people in the English discipline search for, when in reality it’s somewhat unnatural. Moran wouldn’t be able to make an argument about the connection of the disciplines if English hadn’t built itself up just as science has. Original ideas are revered, but are there any truly original ideas? The English discipline is where it is today because of the building upon of ideas of the greats before us. This is the way the disciplines are intertwined.
I don’t want to be an English major because I’m deep. I want to be one because I think there is a science to expressing myself, and that science lies in the evolution of the discipline.