Quote:
Originally Posted by BookCat
I think that having learnt passages from Shakespeare when at college and uni is the main reason why I can now read his plays as easily as novels. The language is clear in meaning to me because of all the quotes in my head. I had to learn them because they illustrated points which were likely to arise in exams, but I'm so glad that this was necessary.
The words of many other great writers live in my head.
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Thanks for confirming that the efforts of the teachers I've known (including my late mother) were not entirely pointless. What might seem like a rote process is actually a form of initiation; it can lead to leaps of thought that would never have been experienced otherwise.
The paradox of memorization is that (depending on what's memorized) it can help you to sidestep the detritus of dead language. The worst thing a writer can do is proceed by linking cliche to cliche, since the immediacy of perception dies in the process. Writing aspires to consciousness -- to the driven complexity of being
awake -- whereas cliches are to thought what zombies are to us: vapid sleepwalkers whose mindlessness is infectious.