English Literature Reflection Essay

Any time I hear of the word literature, just like others, I almost always think of Shakespeare and other American or British writers of old. For me I just really love general knowledge and so reading anything that people all over the world claimed to enjoy was something I wanted to know about in order to expand my knowledge. I did not need to enjoy them I just wanted to know about them and by reading them get to know why so many people liked these kind of books so that if I was missing out on anything, I would get to know what I had missed out on. I just liked reading broad and increasing knowledge in order for me to have an edge over my peers and most people in general.

This experience was before literature as an academic course was taught

I am going to place more emphasis on the plays that we acted. They were all based on the plays for WASSCE. It did not matter whether a class was a Science or Business class, every class had to participate. It could either be a Shakespearean or African play. But more of these plays were Shakespearean in my time. For first and second year my class had to act out King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing respectively. As an actress in both plays I could now relate to some of the things that went on them. Even though parts of the play still made no sense to me, stepping into the shoes of the characters helped in understanding some key concepts and actions that they took. Consequently, anytime I undertook a project in literature I try to visualize each scene and not only read it just for the sake of reading it. In this way, I gain a deeper understanding of it.

Nonetheless, literature especially in the Shakespearean sense still remains something I will do as a leisure activity. Although through my high school experience, I learned that it is best to visualize or rather, see it in a movie or