For some reason, people talk about reading famous literary works as if understanding them is a given. In my experience, this isn’t the case. I’ve read The Four Quartets by TS Eliot several times, slowly, and there are still parts where I don’t understand what he’s getting at.

The ‘classics’ are often famous precisely because they are complicated. We are part of an academic system that encourages us to read these texts, the more of them the better, without acknowledging how much time it takes to fully grasp them.

This year, I read the Spanish classic Mist by Unamuno for the third time. I am amazed about how much I missed the first and the second time round. The text is a tragicomedy and I missed how funny it is. While revising last year, I realised I’d totally misunderstood a poem by Mexican poet Sor Juana de la Cruz. The poem was about Jesus. Clearly about Jesus. It had phrases such as "The son of a mother who has never shared her bed". I said that the poem was the author’s denunciation of nonsensical gossip.

I’m not saying that there is only one possible interpretation of a text. But there is such a thing as a wrong interpretation. You can debate whether or not Hamlet was mad, or when he becomes it, but "To die, to sleep and per chance to dream" is not only saying that he’s tired. Liberalism of literary interpretation can help to hide our misunderstanding.

We need to regain respect for the text itself. Reading and understanding the words on the page should come first. Then choose your point of view. Then analyse all the literary devices. Then make inferences about how the work reflects or breaks with the concerns of the time.

It sounds ridiculously simple, but it is amazing how often we don’t do this. Because we have so much pressure to read quickly so that we can meet our essay deadline. So much pressure to immediately understand what is actually very difficult to understand.

Do we only read to succeed academically? Do we only read to alleviate our own feelings of inadequacy for not being well-read enough? If this is all that reading is, it seems very sad. I have recently had some time to read whatever I like at whatever pace, and I have discovered that reading can be so much more than that. It can engage directly with our own observations and experience.

We expect to be personally influenced by articles, films and songs. But for some reason, we keep the literary canon at a permanently clinical distance, talking about literary texts as if we are above believing in their ideas. We discuss the myth of free will and the dissolution of truth as if these are not concepts that could relate to our lives. And yet, the educational system encourages us to study subjects like literature because the implication is that it will give us a subtler and more complex understanding of the world around us. These ideas are bigger than our weekly essays. These texts will never impact us in the way the university prospectuses promised if we treat literature as something that is only relevant to other literature and academia.

Studying literature is supposed to help us understand that literature. But sometimes it can impede our understanding. Cambridge is one of the top university’s in the world, but being at the top of a value system can also mean the amplification of the flaws inherent in that system. Oxbridge’s persisting tradition of eight week terms often means writing an essay on a different text every week. The fact that we view this rushed approach as beneficial reflects the problem of our society’s mass-consumerism of culture. Constant cheap access to books, films, and more means we are neglecting the importance of truly appreciating a single piece of art or literature.

At Cambridge, I know that we often just do what we can to keep up with our deadlines. But we should remember that we are ultimately reading for ourselves. In order for reading to be beneficial to us, we need to understand the texts and not be afraid to acknowledge how certain works relate to our lives. What is the point of reading at all, if what we read has no lasting effect on us beyond a degree certificate?