Is English Literature/Literature Dumb?

A couple of days ago, I met a friend of mine who I had spent time with in the residential semester we had in Summer 2008. He is from the electronics department and I was very happy to see him; as I usually have classes in English and most of them keep me occupied, I don't get to see most of my friends outside of my own department. Even when I have do have free time I chill out in my department as our university isn't really the most exciting place to be in. So, if we are not in our department we are eating lunch at a place nearby or just chilling in the department ("we" as in me and my friends from my department).

Well, midterm week is here but when I met him (it was Thursday I believe or Wednesday) our midterms did not start yet and I asked how he was doing. Well it was natural he was tensed, after all, he is in the electronics department and they do do a lot of work and midterms were coming up. However, before I could empathize with him he told me something like this:

" It's easy for you right...you being in the English department, you don't have to study much."

I was a bit stunned for a while. But I answered that's not true 'cause we have a lot of books to read. Well he had to leave so he did. He did leave me with the same nagging feelings that have surrounded me for long.

In fact this guy wasn't the first person who has said this. A lot of my friends has said this. They all give me that look that my subject is a piece of cake and I shouldn't be in university or that it shouldn't be in university. In actuality, they haven't stated it like that. But when you give the vibes that the subject is EASY as pulling out a hair on a head full of hair in your own head, with no restraints added on or circumstances stopping you, you pretty much give the message like that.

I won't lie. I, myself, had doubts being an English Literature student for these reasons. I mean the subject is easy for me. But then when I think of it so is psychology and sociology - nor do I have troubles understanding biology. But as Literature is easy for me it may not be the same feeling for others who are not that into it - as one friend told me. I discussed the statement with another friend of mine and she said that even some her friends tell the same things and she dislikes it extremely. I jokingly stated that these opinionated people should read Roland Barthes' "Myth Today" essay - which is quite a brain teaser actually.

But why did I have these doubts? I love literature, writing, concepts, psychology, history - why did this complex sometimes appear? Well, it's simple. In this age, and in every age basically, the written word has had to face grand underestimations. In this claimed age of freedom and development we have it as well - now as the consumer quality of mass commercialism - that divisions of "thoughts" that can sell are qualified and prestigious. I'm not saying this is ubiquitous in the direct definite sense but it does follow through in many places. I mean most people are in business or doing things that have a commercial basis. I'm not saying that writing is not commercial because many a times writers write for money as well - be it good or bad - but in writing for profit many a times we get what is deemed as trash literature. Trash literature is just an idealogical butchering of any cohesive or individualistic function. Most forms of writing, which do not center too much on the commercial, transcends these flaws or restrictions because the writer's true voice does come out. I'm not saying writers do not write for profit but true writers do not only write for profit.

I just feel that people who tend to think my subject is easy may be quite misinformed. After all if it was just a cake walk then I think it would be too difficult to dupe people into studying it - after all we are not THAT STUPID to pay for things that are simple as pulling random hairs out of our own bodies.

I don't think what I'm studying can be valued as such.