How do teaching assistants (TAs) perceive their competency as “language” and “literature” instructors? What are the sources and consequences of their self-beliefs? Teacher self-efficacy (TSE) or “the extent to which a teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance” was explored to gain insight into TAs’ perceptions of teaching competence. This qualitative study evaluated 10 French literature doctoral students’ TSE beliefs to teach literature and their accompanying sources, personal assessments and analyses, and consequences. Results revealed that although the TAs found the graduate program to be highly effective in its formation of literary scholars and language instructors, they found that the pedagogy of literature “falls in a gap between these two holes.”