Studying English the soft option?

Nothing.
I’ve always wanted to write that in an exam. It’s one of those stories people make up. They always knew somebody that was sitting an exam and the question was something like: ‘Is quantum physics relevant to the study of space-time? Show with examples.’ And they wrote ‘NO’ (or ‘YES) and underlined the word, to show authority, probably using a red pencil, but you need to get the voice right here, or it doesn’t really work. The person telling you this must use a rushed- I told you so kind of voice for the ending. They might nod their head to show that what they have said is true. But, of course, we already know, because all stories can be reduced to 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 plots (scientists can use symbols here).

There needs to be at least one plot, or nothing happens, and you are probably sitting through a Samuel Beckett play. But plot isn’t the same as story, so that it can get a bit confusing. How would I explain the difference to your average scientist? I’d need to use a Venn diagram. The plot is a subset of the story and sits in a little circle inside it. No tutor would ever mark in red ink that this has an inadequate story-scheme, because it sounds stupid, especially since we’ve now got computers and everything is marked online. But some tutor might mark this had an inadequate plot-scheme. The chances of that happening are not 50-50 as your average scientist might expect: it had an adequate plot-scheme, or it didn’t. Rather, like Schrödinger’s cat the adequacy of the plot in a story has a paw in both camps, until someone decides one way or the other. It is in other words a subjective judgement.

Subjective judgements are the chaos element in the study of English. Five out of ten people may think I’m a great writer, but what happens if my tutor is in the former, but not the latter category? You might want to look at that again, because there are no former and latter categories. In other words, it’s gobbledygook. Science needs English, but English does not need Science, is also nonsense, but does have former and latter categories and, to go back to my first example, makes a kind of sense.

Some subjective judgements in English have, unfortunately, a greater weight that others. If nine out of ten of my pals, and my granny and my mum, read my submissions to A215 Creative Writing and think they are the best thing that they have ever read and should be published immediately, that makes me very happy. If my tutor starts her summary with: ‘you have made a good attempt…’in Science or Literature you know that she’s telling you a story and it’s not going to be pretty, or have a happy ending. Any tutor, in any subject, has the velocity of a planet, whose orbit you are sucked into.

The comparison that is usually made is that Science always has objective answers, which can be ticked off, as right or wrong; the secrets of the universe is like some mammoth Arithmetic exam. If that is the case then Science and not English, should be seen as the soft option. I am, of course, using rhetoric, making the best possible use of words. It cannot be taught, only learned, because playing with words is never easy and Science only has certainty to content with. Neither is, of course, true, though I’m more right than wrong. Any individual that gets up to the appropriate speed finds that certainties disappear, but contention remains. The truth of Science and English is that we are trying to make something new, from something old.

King Lear speaks in the code of iambic pentameter and
divides up his kingdom. He seems in a bit of a hurry, because it only takes him two lines. The pattern play of recognition may take longer to decipher, but it is a soft option because it is words and not numbers. There are shades of meaning, but, as we know, stories are all the same.

The paradox is that everybody that interprets the play is right and nobody is wrong. The written word, the play, and the performance differ because each individual brings his own experiences to bear, both actors and the audience. Both bring different levels of expertise. But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that dividing up anything, much less a kingdom, is never going to be easy. The author never expected it to be, but he wrote more than two lines. He needed to be able to carry the audience with him, with what happens next. But the plot must not become top heavy and topple over, like a bridge.

Nothing is difficult about studying English. Building bridges is Meccano- set science and all cells are the same basic types. They are all soft options. But if you want to make a story interesting you need to embellish it. There are only six basic plots so it needs a hero. You have just written ‘Nothing,’ in the quantum physics, final-final that determines not just your future, but also the future of humanity. You stride out of the old University Halls and everyone flings their mortarboards up in the air in recognition of your genius. The only problem is it doesn’t make sense. Nobody will ever believe it. Nobody will ever read it. Nobody will ever publish it. So you should have listened to Mrs Boyle your old Guidance teacher and studied physics at school.