people who arenât in the humanities: *that joke about how a non-physicist making shit up would get caught out within 5 minutes & a non-literature student just making shit up would be able to carry on the ruse indefinitely, or something*
meanwhile, literary theory in English: *expects you to be familiar with a broad variety of works in multiple languages written across multiple periods, a much larger corpus of works written in âyourâ chosen period, the broad strokes of whatâs been written about these works across the history of the field of literary studies, specifics about different approaches to literature and history popular throughout the history of the field (more or less, the historiography of the field), the specifics of competing scientific, political, philosophical, popular religious, and academic theological views current in your chosen period & the broad strokes of those immediately before and after, a whole bunch of allusions to ancient/classical literature regardless of what period youâre studying, Continental philosophy + 20th-century and modern philosophy, sociology, critical theory, & gender & race theory regardless of what period youâre studying, oh & youâll probably also need a working knowledge of French, Italian, German, Latin, & at least a little bit of Greek*
