Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind me asking—as a fellow (recently diagnosed) autistic person, do you feel like the “disorder” has affected your literary analysis skills? Like, everyone knows how we struggle with social situations/subtext in particular, but in your experience is it the same with written word?
I don't mind at all!
I do have trouble with the written word, but more often in an interpersonal way where there's a more personal subtext or possibility of subtext than in literature. I'm terrible at giving my students written feedback because what I'm trying to say can so easily "come across wrong" that it takes forever. And I feel like I'm missing a whole dimension of expression when I'm trying to interpret written communications from others.
That said, this is still generally easier for me than speech of any kind, where there are so many more ... axes of indication, I guess. That may be why literature has always "clicked" with me in a way that other media don't—it cuts out some of the things that make dealing with people so difficult, even if some are still there.
With regard to autism+literary analysis skills specifically, there's a definite effect, I think, but it's not so much social, beyond a tendency to sound harsher than I mean to (I end up softening almost everything I write in revision because my default way of expression is so sharp and rigid). I tend to be very fixated on certain aspects of literary texts, and it's actually pretty natural for me to find patterns and connections and so forth that people don't always expect I can—but it's mainly only as long as they're related to my own particular fixations.
