A Fence Upon Which to Sit (Also, a Great Numer of Parentheses)

I am trapped in the middle of two manners of thought.
The first is a fascination with the study of literature. I'm working (in the library) at this moment (well, not this very moment) on a paper about the suicides ("tree-spirits" according to Murray; "soul-trees" according to Fischer) in Dante's Inferno, and it's absolutely intriguing. For those curious, please take a look at Alexander Murray's Suicide in the Middle Ages: The Curse on Self-Murder. It's a wonderful book (and, in delicious irony, 666 pages long).
The second is an unease with all this study of words about words. So much of literary criticism and thought seems to me nothing more than a playing about with verbs; by this casual twist, that begins to mean the other, and so on and so forth.
Ah, well. At least unto the end of my college days, my course has been chosen for me. As an English (Lit. track) major, I must strive to maintain the first, because the second will only complicate things and make the procurement of fine grades more difficult.