Charlie Blondell - Assignment 4

To say that liberal arts and humanities are important is an understatement; they are required. In order to be a well-read and open-minded individual, one must be well acquainted with the arts and techniques of literature and language.

Liberal arts are, by definition, areas of study (such as history, language, and literature) that are intended to give you a general knowledge rather than to develop specific skills needed for a profession. Based on this interpretation, liberal arts will provide a skill set fit to sufficiently accommodate most areas of study within a field dealing with history, language, and/or literature. Science and math are necessary, yes, but are also very specific and narrow, dealing with tasks with that have one correct solution or way to accomplish them. English and humanities allows students and professors to be creative in their thought process; one answer is usually never the case. The soft skills acquired can be used not only to discover a resolution, but can also be used to intelligently communicate what it is you are trying to get across.

Dramas, novels, and poems can be used in a variety of ways to better enhance your understanding of the arts in the world around us. For example, but analyzing scripts for Shakespearean plays and comparing them to scripts written for shows on Broadway like Wicked, you can see the change over time in the dialogues and action cues. The same can be said for the analysis of novels and poems and how the styles and techniques used have developed over time.

To better comprehend pieces of literature means to better comprehend the language and writing man-kind throughout history. The narratives and messages depicted can also be studied, to see how tones and attitudes have progressed over time. For my education, the liberal arts has helped strengthen my reading, writing, text comprehension, and higher-level thinking in regards to literature. For my character, the liberal arts has made me a more open-minded person in the sense of realizing that multiple solutions can be derived in order to solve one problem.