About The Watchful Scribe

After all, though I would humbly claim to now possess a general knowledge of the study of literature, it goes without saying that 3 years of research is barely enough time to put a tool to the surface, let alone make a scratch. This is likely a common feeling amongst graduates, of being spat out by their institution just while they were getting into the swing of it.

But I also wonder whether this sensation of being prematurely presented to the world was particularly heightened for myself and students of my cohort by the blotting shadow of the COVID pandemic.

For those not from the UK, our lockdowns began in March 2020. That fateful date also happened to be right in the middle of my first year of university; the point at which the crazed glamour of independence was beginning to fade, and our attentions were actually beginning to turn to the subjects that we were spending thousands of pounds on the pleasure of studying. 

Suddenly, instead of making our way each day as a commonality of students to the lecture hall and the classroom, we were suddenly packing up our things in haste and retreating back to our separate homes. Many of us didn’t see the point of emptying our halls, in the belief that we’d be back by July- this, of course, was not to be. 

Restrictions had lessened enough by September for us to emerge from our hideaways, blinking at the sunlight, and return to student accommodation in time for the second academic year. However, due to the two far more unforgiving lockdowns to come over the winter months, we would not fully return to in-person study until the beginning of our third year.

That is precisely half of my university experience spent in remote isolation, much of which was not even in the same part of the country.

I do not write this to whine, or bemoan my lot, or to claim that we students were the hardest hit by the period of intense social fasting that the pandemic necessitated. All sacrificed, and all suffered because of it. However, I do believe that we as a group have had a singular experience of academia as a result, and I also feel that this website was born partly from frustrations instilled by this most unique of university careers.

See, it strikes me in hindsight that there is a specific and delicate psychological progression to the university experience. This naturally will not apply to all, but I believe it is somewhat accurate for myself and those that I knew. The frantic excitement of the first year, when there is no consideration of anything beyond the student lifestyle (which, in itself, scarcely concerns the student part anyway) slowly calms as the prospect of life beyond academia looms on the horizon in the second; when that distant vision towers near in one’s final year, the student has had two years of gradual preparation to come to terms with the inescapable concern of future direction. Thus, wide-eyed, unfocused energy is processed into a trepidatious but assured confidence. 

The emergency enforcement of restrictions, however, ground that natural and vital momentum of development to a halt. A university’s second year, it seems, is about tentatively expanding one’s awareness beyond the narrow bandwidth of one’s individual pursuit of pleasure, into more conscious and productive avenues that provide a foundation for the focused preparation of third year. On the other hand, our university experience was in effect paused between March of the first and the beginning of the third. Therefore, we were entering our final stretch of academia still with the mentality of a fresher just beginning to shift their attention onto their work. 

We did our best to study during the lockdowns, and our lecturers strove to provide the quality of education that we were there for. But as in all other areas of society, when compared to existence in the flesh, life through a screen appears rather grey. 

As such, by the time we were being faced with the urgent prospect of joining wider society, we’d hardly even had the time to figure out how to exist as a productive student. But some of you reading may be wondering; if I felt so short-changed by my university lot, why not extend it into a Masters degree?

Well, perhaps the ordeal of studying through a lockdown somewhat removed the sheen of academia. And there is the frustrating yet unignorable fact that, in my country, further education is both more expensive and less financially supported than Undergraduate degrees. And yet beyond those factors, I felt it was important at that stage to remove myself from the comforting shield of the university process, and experience other pursuits instead.

Which is why I developed this website. I believe it to be a perfect marriage between my abstract academic interests, and the technological utilitarianism of the modern world. I can both wax lyrical about literature, while developing both a portfolio of work and a practical skillset that may prove useful to me in the future. 

More than that, though, it provides motivation for me to broaden and bolster my study in ways that my reduced university experience did not (and yet I know, had I been graced with the usual academic career, it would have done). There feels something far more inspiring about producing a formatted and edited piece of work each week, and posting it onto a public website adorned with artwork representing two of my favourite authors (Lord Byron and HG Wells) than simply making private notes into a book that otherwise collects dust in a desk drawer. 

And, if other people can read my work and find some use in it, then that is a wonderful bonus.

So, perhaps much too far down this About page, here is a brief description of what this site has to offer. Firstly, in the Scribe’s Scribblings you will find a series of blog post on the arts, uploaded to every week or so, in which I scribble down (hence the name) a vaguely-coherent collection of thoughts on a subject. The topics range from Shakespeare and Shelley, to Camus and Jung, to Freddie Mercury and heavy metal music, so I hope there is something in there that piques your interest.

Likewise, in the Essays section, there are a handful of longer form pieces about more in-depth topics, selected from both my university career and my time as a graduate. The essay about Henry James also concerns the inspiration for the site’s unique moniker and theme, and there is a link to that at the bottom of this page. It strikes me as a sensible place to start.

Lastly, there is a YouTube page, which is still a work in progress.

What I have found most beneficial about this site, beyond the practical points I laid out above, is the clarity of thought that writing can provide. In jotting down one’s ideas into a format designed to be read by others, it requires that the swirling, half-conceived nebula of inspirations, opinions and epiphanies that clog up the brain are set down into a clearly structured argument. 

The process of organising one’s thoughts can often result in you understanding them more than if they’d been left merely as disjointed, piece-meal bursts of mental activity. For example, while writing this About page I have developed a far more clear picture about how the pandemic affected my university experience, as well as what my overall vision for this website is, than I possessed before.

Time to bring this ramble to a close. I have written it in a way that reflects the style of my other work, so if you have reached this far, you will likely enjoy both the Scribblings and the longer Essays. This website has been immensely beneficial to myself, and I hope that it will prove of some use to you, too.

Thank you for reading,