Analysing over analysis.

Now, i wonder how many of you can remember the last time you over analysed a piece of literature. For me it was at approximately 4 minutes past 12 today- and it was absolutely horrendous. It felt like unpicking a seam in a piece of clothing and then untwisting the thread fibres so that you end up with a tiny, feeble piece of fluff that is pretending that it was once part of the full garment.

[for those of you unfamiliar with over analysing literature I shall give you a quick step by step guide:
1: read the above paragraph 4 times.
2: highlight the following words and phrases "approximately" "4 minutes past 12""absolutely horrendous" "unpicking a seam" "untwisting... fibres" "feeble piece of fluff"
3: now spend 10 minutes contemplating "what the author's aim was", "the tone and atmosphere that the quotations convey" and "the styles, approaches, tools and techniques the author uses".
4: Now write up your thoughts using words like "shows", "evokes", "suggests", "infers", "references", "symbolises" etc. etc. And remember- You must use the Point, Evidence, Explanation (P.E.E) structure in your paragraphs.
5: repeat 60 times and try to stretch your answer into a whole 6 page essay. fun times.]

No wonder people don't like learning english literature!? It's so tiresome. It's just a constant stream of essays requiring you to ruin every book or poem or play you ever loved and turn it into a selection of carefully chosen quotations and carefully sculpted A* analysis paragraphs. English should be about more than just analysing and pulling apart authors' work. It ought to be about manipulating your own language, communicating your ideas and passions, using words to express yourself and your opinions and learning to love and appreciate literature- NOT about learning to destroy and dissect it!

I'm sure John Steinbeck and George Orwell (among others) would be horrified to hear that their work was the source of such great pain and irritation for the very minds that they were trying to educate and influence. I'm sure there are few poets that would like to know that every line they ever wrote was scrutinised and pulled apart on a daily basis, that people would search for reasons behind trivial phrases and coincidental or subconscious language choices. The best authors write instinctively- they don't carefully choose each word and meticulously link each phrase to other images they've explored; it's usually natural, involuntary and not over thought.

We are nurturing a hate for the finest literature that we have access to. We are making young people despise the names "Wilfred Owen", "Jane Austen", "Charlotte Bronte", "Ernest Hemingway", "Virginia Woolf", "Harper Lee".... We are letting a mark based system flourish while allowing true passion and excitement decay. We don't encourage individuality and self-expression. It just about grades, and grades are just about analysing. On the rare occasions that students can discuss something they are genuinely enthusiastic about it holds less than half the number of marks of an essay that is based on a structure provided by the teacher. Difference and originality are not rewarded.

Tip: whenever you can don't analyse the things you read. Just read and digest. Let the tricks that the author uses to inspire emotions in you go unanalysed. Writing is subliminal- it's meant to make you feel things without you being able to pin point how. It's mean to represent the way we interact in real life- the fact that sometimes we can't work out why we feel how we feel. We are human. Literature is human. Analysing... that's unnatural.