Like most people, my first experience of literature began with those four little words which, despite their cliché, so perfectly embody the imagination of childhood; once upon a time. But in my case, they only embodied stress and difficulties. Having been diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, the first chapter of my literary life was a very reluctant one and it was years before I finally read Once Upon a Time in Black and White Among the Anthropomorphized Animals of the "The Jungle Book" by Kipling or the strong rhymes of "The Gruffalo" by Donaldson. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Looking back, this chapter will always be my favorite; Dyslexia has forced me to focus on each letter, word and sentence individually, causing a close reading style that provides endless gratification in the detailed discovery of each new text I read. Take the Beatnik writers for example. Although life thus far has been and continues to be less narcotic and hedonistic than the sheer madness of Jack Kerouac's spontaneous prose novel "On the Road," I have been drawn to the frenzy of love and longing of the dizzying journey of its allegorical characters. I found myself hooked on Kerouac's breathless, intimate style, both questioning his hypocritical misogyny and then later relating to his depiction of broken frustration with the pace of the world in the character of Carlo Marx, whose The real-life equivalent is the provocative work of Allen Ginsberg. Howl' has become my favorite poem. I felt distant from this small but complex and impactful literary subculture that existed over fifty years ago, three thousand miles away, and yet with each new text I read, that distance narrowed and I was fascinated by what I could see coming into perspective. on the competing aspects of their movement, the spiritual and the economic, the progressive and the regressive. I would go on to read Kerouac's early poems in his collection "Atop an Underwood" as well as some of Ginsberg's other works to feed my addiction to the Beatniks, including the subversion of early cultural autocracy and the radical rethinking of the American dream remain particularly convincing. so much so that when I entered and won an essay contest hosted by my local university on the question of what the American Dream meant in 2017, I saw the Beatniks as fundamental to reshaping that meaning in the modern context . Another literary movement, closer to home, that I connect intimately with the Beatniks was that of the Romantics, and the essential William Blake. His rebukes of the oppressively illiberal church and state, as well as the bitter impact of the industrial revolution, are intertwined in his ironically complex volumes of lyric poetry, the two "Songs of Innocence" and the hostile “Songs of Experience,” intended to read like nursery rhymes, reminded me deeply of Kerouac and Ginsberg’s rally against materialism. I loved Blake so much that I joined the Blake Company, and when asked to design and deliver a talk to Year 11 GCSE students on a given topic, I chose to talk about William Blake and Romanticism, exploring everything from the Enlightenment to French history. and industrial revolutions, to the Big Six, to Blake's other artistic activities. Reading is something that, by rights, I shouldn't enjoy, but that only makes it all the more rewarding when I tackle a difficult text. Keep in mind: this.