Why I’m an English Major

In terms of my blog, this will probably be my shortest post to date (and possibly ever). While my Wednesdays are usually free, I have a paper due tonight that I’m very concerned about.

And I’m not concerned because I haven’t started or I don’t know what I’m writing – I’m concerned because this topic is important to me and I don’t want to screw it up. While I have written papers like this before, this is the first time in a while where this has happened to me. Last night I got to page 6 of my assigned 4 page essay – I have a lot to say about this particular poem.

Thankfully my professor said it’s okay if you go over the page count – while it gives him more to read, he says he’ll enjoy it if you’re “in the zone.” And what a zone I’m in.

I don’t know why, but doing justice to this beautiful, tragic poem is important to me. Written by W. B. Yeats, “No Second Troy” is a 10 line poem, yet its complexity compels me to tell its story, about this woman that Yeats believes is Helen of Troy reincarnated. I feel as though if I don’t write this paper to the best of my ability, I will let Yeats down. He gave me this wonderful work of art for me to mess with, to twist and to mold into an argument about why anyone should care about a 10 line poem, and I have to return the favor and write that argument in an eloquent and beautiful way.

This is why I’m an English major. It’s not that I like to read, it’s not that I like to write. It’s not that my mind automatically turns to analysis of character and syntax when I read a work such as this one. It’s the joy I get when I can finally tease apart the complexities of a piece and then reconstruct it into my own argument. Even though the poem was Yeats’, the argument is mine. And that joy is something I might have lost, writing paper after paper. Sure, I don’t often come across a subject I’m this passionate about. But as I write more papers than I ever have this year, I hope that I inject that same amount of passion into every one of them – and that my teacher can see that passion I have.

“No Second Troy”

from The Green Helmet and Other Poems, 1912

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?