Immerse Yourself In The World Of Academic Literature With These Free Professional Playlists

If you’ve ever taken a literature course at school, then you’ll likely have been struck by how much in-depth application of thought goes into the simple act of reading. In the early days, reading in class was just about getting used to the words and enjoying the story. We might have gone into some depth when it comes to structure or storytelling, but the main exercise was to enjoy the writing. Moving on to academic literature was like opening a door we didn’t even know was there until someone pointed it out. There is a universe of depth beneath the best stories and if we know how to open the door to it, it gladly lets us walk around.  
 
Of course, the main element of why we read stories is for the enjoyment of it. If we didn’t take pleasure in the art of writing, then we’d not bother to read it beyond the necessary. Many people prefer the pages of a book to the flickering screen or the scratchy radio. Most of us are content with a variety of the three. Why bother to go any further than this? Why do people apply theory and rationale to stories that go way beyond the contents of the page?  
 
Reading stories that are true to life in certain aspects can help us to understand these truths in a way that transcends the usual observer. Being involved with the story puts us in the shoes of the culture and its behaviours giving us a true awareness of the experience we wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. We can get to grips with social situations that might be alien to us and we can learn what it’s like to be one of the group before we’ve even met them.  
 
The complex and inventive storytelling architecture can become influential across genres and scopes. A style, a method, and a progression can all be translated into other scenarios with completely new backgrounds. Often, it’s the appreciation of clever ideas that provide us the motivation to have our own or to mirror what we like into our own working projects. It’s not just our projects that benefit; a good story can become a real-life motivator for home and work. By learning about people and their virtues, we can be truly influenced by someone completely fictional. 
 
Have you ever felt for the people in the story? Empathy is something we all have to practice. Our imaginations can only perceive the emotion in someone else if we can appreciate where it comes from, the thinking that accompany it, and the kind of mental picture it creates. If we’ve not been in a person’s shoes before then we are severely limited in how to appreciate someone’s humanity. Everything becomes dry and intellectualised which, in the real world, often results in lost rapport. When we learn from literature, the facts might be made up but the people in the story are represented in a true-to-life way. That’s why we enjoy the stories and it’s why we want to find out what happens next. We relate to the people that we feel the most affiliation to. This is why the best stories have vivid and colourful characters who artfully represent the reality of our lives.  
 
 The way we learn language as children is by listening and repeating. We build the pictures in the mind as we learn how phrases are used. The words themselves come later, with expressions of sound being our first attempt. Babble is a baby's first attempt at replicating human speech. By the time we’ve learned to read, we know a lot of words and their phrases. But we don’t stop there. The process continues. Reading gives us instant access to ways of speaking that we might not be exposed to in our local environment. The writing from around the world and from across the centuries can enrich our vocabulary beyond what any illiterate life could provide. The more we can say, the more we can achieve.  
 
Perhaps the most valuable part of studying literature at an academic level is the ability to think critically. When we critically assess a story, we don’t just judge the people are villains and heroes, we look at them as human beings or complete creatures with rich and valid emotional lives. The systems the story purveys and the relationships between characters invite us to think about the validity of what’s going on the reasons why things are this way, and what, if anything could be done to affect the world. A make-believe scenario gives us a playground to be politicians and lawyers, historians and warriors, so we can learn about how to apply genuine power in the genuine world.  
 
Dive into academic literature for free with these YouTube playlists. 
 
Various Sources – English literature over 200 videos 
 
Paul H. Fry – Introduction to the Theory of Literature 
 
Amy Hungerford – The Amercian Novel Since 1945 
 
Various Sources – English Literature lectures 50 Videos 
 
Langdon Hammer – Modern Poetry 
 
Bob Ahlersmeyer – British Literature 
 
Dale B. Martin – New Testament Literature 
 
John Rogers – Milton 
 
Harvard – Shakespeare After All 
 
Refaat Alareer – English Poetry 
 
Merin Simi Raj – History Of English Language and Literature 
 
Klasify Academy – Literature in English 
 
This covers a lot from a wide variety of people and backgrounds. Naturally, the content on YouTube is changing all the time and more great literature courses might appear or become findable on search over time. Once you’ve sifted these, do keep your eyes open for anything else the algorithm suggests. Comment with your discoveries. 

If you're one of those people who like to keep professional courses forever and go the extra mile with your learning, you can find affordable and professionally tutored literature courses here.​
​