Bailey Betik’s Fascination with Words

English major Bailey Betik mapped a path through written works, producing a handful of undergraduate research projects that among other things traced objectification of women from Italian poet Francesco Petrarch and Disney to the Hollywood film 500 Days of Summer.

Historical forces shaping today’s culture came alive through her studies. Her analyses of written works inspired her to “think about the lens through which I see the world,” said Betik, a Fulbright scholar who will spend a year in India. “I was never told growing up [in Ennis, Texas] that I could change the world, or that I could do something that would contribute to a larger body of knowledge.”

“I never wanted to be that person stuck in a book, because then you limit yourself from real life.”

While she enjoyed poring through the words written in bygone eras, the former theatre major had to hone her scholarly focus. “How do I shape things that are from dead dude poets from the 1800s or the 1300s?” she said. “How is that relevant and pertinent to me in my everyday life as a 21-year-old college student?

Betik represented TCU at the Texas biennial Undergraduate Research Day with a research project on William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman and how they discovered spiritual meaning outside of the institutional church.

“Do you love the idea of a person, or do you love an actual person, especially when you pedestalize them and make them into this perfect being?”
Betik

She found inspiration with Transatlanticism, which is focused on focused on 19th century Anglo-American literature. By comparing the synchronous 19th century worldviews outlined in the two poets’ works, Betik widened her perspective to examine ideas about religion and the location of divinity.

But the trend of turning away from the church in the 1800s led Betik to questions about the manic scheduling so many people commit to today. “I wanted to look at the value of taking a step back and reflecting and the values of waiting and patience that people don’t necessarily have today,” she said.

In another project, Betik explored the objectification of women beginning in Petrarch’s pre-Renaissance poems. “He wrote 300 love sonnets to this woman named Laura, who he had seen twice in his life — once at her wedding, and once at her funeral — and never spoken to.”

The young scholar deliberated about whether the ideals Petrarch communicated about love robbed Laura of her own voice, her imperfect humanity. Betik examined the same theme through the Renaissance to James Joyce and then to movies from the 21st Century.

The aspiring English professor considered the ways and reasons people can be objectified in 2015. “Do you love the idea of a person, or do you love an actual person, especially when you pedestalize them and make them into this perfect being?”

“I never wanted to be that person stuck in a book, because then you limit yourself from real life.”
Betik

In analyzing the prose of a 14th century Italian poet, Betik altered her perceptions about the way she and her peers envision a perfect partner and how she might improve her relationships. “I can’t hold them to a standard that I don’t always uphold,” she said.

Betik appreciates how her English studies combined different fields, from philosophy and physics to psychology and film. Analyzing words and subsequently recombining information in prose of her creation is “like being in a long-term relationship with your mind.”

She said completing the series of research projects “really helped me discover what I enjoy doing and how I enjoy communicating.” In analyzing literature, she learned how to conduct academic research, and most importantly, she learned about herself. What was one of her self-discoveries? “That I’m interested in literally everything.”