To a Student in My Composition and Rhetoric Class (Introduction to Literature)

Dear Student,

I was very happy you recently emailed me about a research essay topic you want to pursue. That you felt strongly enough to ask a question is gratifying. You wouldn't know this, but I begin every semester hoping that students find plays, poems, and stories that move them profoundly, or at least profoundly enough to ask such questions as you have.

Unfortunately, after fifteen weeks of class this term, you alone have fulfilled this hope. Your classmates, though nice people and smart enough, have rarely shown the desire or self-motivation to vigorously explore the literary texts in our course. They have read, or skimmed. They have glibly opined. They have written papers. However, I feel they have not been taken by any of our texts. They were unimpressed by Hamlet's grief and by how severely he reckoned every possible course of action. They eschewed, or seemed to, the lonely and noble reflection of Jane Kenyon's "Let Evening Come." They saw no kinship between themselves and proud Sylvia in Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson." 

It takes passion to read anything, but especially drama, poetry, and fiction. It takes conviction to write, but especially to write an academic essay. What I have really been trying to tell and teach all of you is to be passionate, assertive, bold, and confident. If you can muster these attitudes for a class, you can muster them in your life. As much as any knowledge, skill, or wisdom that you take from school, these attitudes will serve you well in life and carry you far.

But there is more than utility to these attitudes. They have more value than getting you a job and helping you succeed in a career. No, these attitudes are the formula of emotional depth and perspective. The happiness literature offers is understanding happiness. From our best writing we learn that happiness is complex, fleeting, easily unrecognized, and surprisingly connected to outlook and effort. And the wisdom literature offers is that of adventure, for the worlds created in literature lead out to reality and to knowledge that spans centuries of human endeavor.

Just two examples of the happiness and wisdom I mean, and then I will close. Think on the rich, lasting happiness from the end of Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind":

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Shelley describes a happiness greater, if less pure, than a child's. It's a lasting, hopeful happiness. It's the happiness of knowing life continues inexorably. To Shelley, we are instruments of a powerful universe in motion. Such happiness comes from being bound sonically and temperamentally to that universe. We readers, too, joyfully recognize the intertwining rhyme Shelley uses. We see it and connect with him, and his world. We hear the trumpet tones and know this sound calls just as well in our world.

We take from Shelley a wise happiness, a kind of knowledge not found in movies, television, games, or other activities--all of which possess their own wisdom. Yet we talk about wisdom and knowledge as if they were only about having facts and being able to recall them. Consider, then, the wisdom of the speaker in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues":

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours. I just watched Sonny's face. His face was troubled, he was working hard, but he wasn't with it. And I had the feeling that, in a way, everyone on the bandstand was waiting for him, both waiting for him and pushing him along. But as I began to watch Creole, I realized that it was Creole who held them all back. He had them on a short rein. Up there, keeping the beat with his whole body, wailing on the fiddle, with his eyes half closed, he was listening to everything, but he was listening to Sonny. He was having a dialogue with Sonny. He wanted Sonny to leave the shoreline and strike out for the deep water. He was Sonny's witness that deep water and drowning were not the same thing -- he had been there, and he knew. And he wanted Sonny to know. He was waiting for Sonny to do the things on the keys which would let Creole know that Sonny was in the water.

The man admits at the outset he is limited in his knowledge about music. Yet, like the improvising musicians he observes and hears, he builds on what he knows and tries to expand it. Baldwin's writing here focuses on hearing and watching--listening to Sonny play and watching him expend effort. Baldwin searches and finds in the music a dialogue between Creole and Sonny, a dialogue that turns into Sonny's musical exodus or perhaps a musical baptism.

This is the wisdom of hearing and observing, yes, but more the wisdom of sharing and connecting. What sings in this prose is how the speaker voices--attempts to articulate on the fly--how he understands Sonny and Creole. He wants to partake of their interplay. He learns by doing and by actively being.

The happiness and wisdom of literature are unfathomably rich. My student, I wanted you and all your classmates to learn this. Excepting you alone, I failed this semester. I failed because your classmates did not want to be reached and did not think it was worth their energy. I failed because I was not focused or skilled or apt enough to overcome their extraordinary apathy and complacence.

I will retire as a college teacher at the end of this semester. I cannot foresee teaching an Introduction to Literature course again. After 17 years of teaching, I have lost the drive to lead any more classes on the perilous journey through the language and stories of the past, and through the struggle of writing now. I have ceased to be an effective teacher, if ever I was one.

My student, your letter is a comfort to me as I depart. As you go your own way in life, I hope some of what we have read this term stays with you and grows with you. I bid you, as Tennyson's "Ulysses," to seek newer worlds beyond the sunset. That is my intent. Perhaps we will meet again.

Larry Tanner, a teacher

Is it the students or me?

As usual, I am teaching an early-morning class introducing students to drama, poetry, and short fiction. It's a writing intensive class that I have conducted at the same community college for 10 years.

The students in this term's class have been challenging and disappointing. Usually, the spring semester's classes go well because students have come off of the fall term in the swing of academic work. They know where the library is. They know their study habits. They know their schedule.

My students this semester, however, seem very unprepared. They constantly come in late. They hand in work late or not at all. They don't ask questions when they are confused. All of these issues I have repeatedly addressed with the students in different ways. Only now, with about three weeks left in the semester, have some of the messages started to sink in and show themselves in student behavior.

I cannot tell whether this class is anomalous or a sign of students to come. I probably won't be around much longer to find out. In my mind, I have resolved to teach the fall course and then take an extended-to-permanent break.

I lean toward thinking that the students are getting "worse," by which I mean less prepared to deal with material that doesn't conform to certain expectations. In other words, I see these students as less flexible in their thinking.

For example, in one early assignment, I brought in an essay sample for us to go over together. In my opinion, the sample was very clear and well-written. It should have been easy to understand, particularly as we had been reading Hamlet, the subject of the paper.

I put it to you, readers. Is this not lucid prose?

Act I of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet depicts a time “out of joint” (I.v.189). A ghost, a threat of war, and a new king all characterize the moment; the very world seems set against Denmark. For instance, after witnessing the Ghost, Horatio remarks, “This bodes some strange eruption to our state” (I.i.69). King Claudius, newly crowned and married, offers another sign of trouble, that Denmark’s enemies may think the state has become “disjoint and out of frame” (I.ii.20). Finally, when Hamlet follows the Ghost, the sentinel Marcellus declares “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.v.90).

During Act I, Claudius becomes identified as the source of Denmark’s troubles. He is a fratricide and a regicide, he has unjustly assumed power, and he has wed the widow of the man he murdered. Hamlet, son of the slain king, learns of Claudius’s foul deeds; the young prince swears to avenge his father. By Act I’s end, the proud prince seems to have license for any punishment he means to give Claudius. Unfortunately, Hamlet approaches Claudius by feigning madness, a strategy that actually creates more problems than it resolves. In other words, Hamlet diminishes his noble vengeance by pretending to be mad. Hamlet’s path to revenge thus prolongs the “eruption” and makes the state further disjoint. In accordance with his motives and his father’s war-like persona, Hamlet should have decided to oppose Claudius openly.

To accept that Hamlet undermines his purpose by feigning madness, we must first examine his motives. If Hamlet has good and honorable reasons to avenge his father’s murder, it is partly because he is obliged to do so. Vengeance is right because it is duty. One such obligation is love for his father:

GHOST: List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAMLET: O God!
GHOST: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. (I.v.23-6)

A second source of obligation to vengeance is Hamlet’s intellect. The Ghost marks Hamlet as a discerning young man who should be impassioned by knowing Claudius’s betrayal:

                                                I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. (I.v.32-5)

In addition to love and intellect, Hamlet’s sense of natural morality obligates him to avenge his father’s murder. The Ghost appeals to this sense in Hamlet: “If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; / Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest” (I.v.82-4). Here, the Ghost agitates Hamlet’s dignity; the young prince should be affronted that an unworthy person now holds both the office and queen of a once-valorous king.

*  *  [snip]  *  *

By faking madness, Hamlet does not embrace his destiny but rather defers it. Act I ends with Hamlet poised to pursue vengeance against Claudius. Yet Hamlet also recoils at his fate, as when he laments, “The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!” (I.v.189-90). If Hamlet defers his destiny, he also perverts the noble motives justifying revenge. To maintain his virtue, Hamlet could have publicly claimed himself the legitimate successor to the elder Hamlet. This path would have befitted the fallen war king. Prince Hamlet’s true fate, the one he defers, is to pursue revenge through battle against Claudius. By pretending to be mad, Hamlet adds a new rottenness in Denmark and aids that which already sickens the state. He chooses the wrong way to pursue the right ends.

As I said, the essay should have been easy to understand--but it eluded them. Students found the vocabulary of the paper challenging. They couldn't articulate the paper's argument at all, and they certainly did not see it as something they should try to emulate in their own academic writing.

I figure if my students and I are so far apart on something fundamental, then it's time for me to go.

How to Piss Off Your Professor

You may know that I teach a class in introduction to literature. I enjoy the class, and it's going well this semester.

In addition to frequent reading assignments, the class has gone through two cycles for short essays. Normally, essay assignments are handed out about a week or more in advance of the deadline. Plus, every student is required to show me a working paragraph at least two days before the deadline. The requirement helps me guide students and give them feedback. It also helps students start their papers earlier, which can only help them hand in a better product.

This morning, the third short essay was due in class. One student, however, came to class but did not turn in a paper. In fact, this student received the assignment on Wednesday--the due date for the working paragraph requirement--because he had been absent from earlier classes.

He approached me after class to tell me he couldn't complete the paper because "the assignment was unclear." Also unclear, he said, was a long illustration I had written out showing how to properly quote literature and then explain to a reader what was just quoted. That illustration was given to students along with the essay assignment itself, and I had explained both and offered to answer student questions on them.

They were unclear, he asserted. Unclear.

I was pretty pissed at the deliberate phrasing he used. Essentially, he was saying he could have completed the assignment if it had been more explicit about what he was supposed to do. It was my fault, in other words.

I let him know, I hope clearly, that even if the assignment was unclear to him, he had let plenty of opportunities slip to get help. After talking more with him, he showed that he really did know exactly what to do: a literary analysis, just like we had done two times before. Just like everyone else in class was able to do for the assignment.

The student should have simply mentioned that he was unable to complete his paper on time. He should have stated what he understood the assignment to be for his chosen topic, and then he should have let me either confirm or correct his understanding.

He made a really bad move telling me the assignment was unclear.

I worked to develop that assignment. I worked to make it clear. I worked in class to explain it. I solicited questions from students. I required a mini-review two days before deadline to address any questions. I did my job.

That motherfucker's on my shit list now.

Reading Comprehension Fail

Denyse O'Leary: A little milk in your mustache, dear.

Here is what I wrote:

However, I am surprised that that Carroll's post has not generated more discussion at UD [Uncommon Descent] than it has: only about 23 responses in 24 hours.

Here's what a granny thinks I meant:

Huh? Fellow claims no one cared about “Don’t need God” physicist Sean Carroll’s recent post …

I neither said nor meant that people didn't care. Rather, I stated only that I had expected more discussion (please note that discussion is a different concept than caring) in the first 24 hours of the post's life than what I saw.

[Sigh.]

The granny finishes:

File under: Yuh. Another “science” guy holds forth.

I'm actually a humanities guy. Please go back to sleep, Denyse.

ABD Again!

"ABD again, Just can't wait to be ABD again...."

I am elated to report that I have passed my Ph.D. candidacy exams. I am now, once again, all but dissertation (ABD). In 2000, I took and passed the earlier incarnation of the same exams, but I never completed a dissertation. Now I have the opportunity to make good on all the time and money I had spent so long ago.

I am especially gratified at passing because my work life was so busy that finding time and ways to prepare for the exam was extremely challenging. I broke down my strategy to its core--study only the most important parts of the most important texts. It worked.

However, passing the exam and giving myself pats on the back will be meaningless if I don't finish the dissertation. Fortunately, I have a good topic and the resources to do the job. One reason I was unable to complete the dissertation the first time around was lack of access to the texts I needed.

And so, I'll humbly go where I had once gone before...and then I'll hope to travel beyond.

Things Past, Things Pats, and Things Concerning the Future

My alarm was set for 5:00 am, but I was up before then and preparing to leave for Amherst. I was pretty nervous about my German language translation exam. The past few days had been rough: my practice tests didn't go well. I felt like I did not know enough vocabulary. I also thought I had a ways to go to master German syntax generally. I had even considered calling my friend Steve, who would be administering the exam, and delaying the test. However, I felt that it was too late to back off, so I went ahead.

I left the house at 6:00 am and headed west. Although I had brought several CDs, I couldn't stand to have anything playing on the ride up. I simply talked to myself, trying to keep up my pep, hoping to run through my strategy enough so that I'd be able to execute well in the mere hour I had to translate 250 words of modern German into reasonably sensible English.

I drove Route 2 into the Athol area and then headed south toward Amherst. The sun had come up by the time I arrived, and I appreciated getting to see the sun come up over some valley as I started to get into the area that had been my home so long ago.

When I got into Amherst, on Main Street and past Amherst college, everything suddenly seemed familiar to me. I went down the road and got onto Sunset Avenue, where the old house was. It looked just the same as when I lived there. I then went into Amherst center and had a bagel at Bruegger's. My plan had been to relax at Bruegger's, have some food and coffee, and study until it was time to leave for the test.

Then Bill Belichik, head coach of the New England Patriots, walked in. I recognized him instantly. I thought this was very exciting. After discreetly watching him order food and pay, I watched him get into his car and drive off. Then I called my wife to tell her.

Studying didn't go so well. I hadn't expected to be so happy to be back in Amherst. I left Bruegger's and drove to campus. I walked around, noting the place where I once met my first serious girlfriend, the place where I had taken so many of my classes, the library, the building where I learned Swedish, the building where I almost got into serious trouble, the building where I heard Louis Farrakhan speak, and others. What I felt while I was on campus again was deep and maybe even mysterious to me. I tried remembering what it felt like when I was 18 to be walking on these grounds. What would I have been thinking about? Sex, I supposed....

I made it to my friend Steve's house exactly on time. We said hello and caught up a little bit. Then I started on the exam. Before the time started, I chose one of the German passages that Steve had selected for me. My choice was a section on Early Middle High German literature. Soon after I had begun, I felt like I was in distress. The typeface and typesetting were so close that I couldn't easily identify difficult words and then insert glosses. Hyphenated line breaks gave me issues, too. The passage had long sentences and parenthetical inserts, which made it very hard for me to locate the main verb and start deeciphering sentences to be put into English. Oh, and there were so many words I did not know.

I did actually consider at one point that things were going so horribly that I should get up and terminate the exam. I felt overwhelmed and overloaded. Worst of all, I wasn't sure what to do about it. I decided to press on and just fail. At least I would have given it a shot. If I failed, I would probably have given up on finishing the dissertation. There was no way I could put Steve, my family, and me through the stress and inconvenience of my having to re-take an exam that I had had seven months to prepare for the first time.

I finished translating the passage. I was sullen and dispirited. I didn't proof it at all. I handed it to Steve, who saw that I was unhappy about the test. He generously offered to have me take another exam with one of the other texts, but I declined. My fate with this one test would be as it should be.

We reviewed a bit of my text, since I was worried about my penmanship. Wonder of wonders: Steve thought the translation was OK! We moved away from the review and talked about other things. Steve didn't know that UMass was my alma mater or the story behind my becoming unable to finish the first dissertation topic. We talked about folks we knew and ideas we shared. He's a great guy, that Steve: he has nice things to say - substantial things - about everyone, and he's sincere. When I left Steve's house, I felt like there was a decent chance I could pass the exam. I would know for sure in 24-48 hours, Steve had said.

I made it home by 2:15 pm. After a bite to eat and some time with the wife and kids, I went up to the computer because I wanted to post that I'd seen Bill Belichik up close and personal. There in my inbox was the note telling me and my dissertation director that I had taken and passed the translation exam. I was stunned at how soon the decision came in, but the explanation was clear: a few minor mistakes in syntax and word-forms but rated at a 96%.

I was too tired then - I'm too tired now - to appreciate this success properly. But it was a great feeling to say I stood in, took the test, kept on when things got rough, and made it through as a winner. This test was one important but early milestone in a long road that I must travel. On I go.

Forty Lessons for Forty Years

[double happiness]

Today is my fortieth birthday. I'm not certain that I can define how I feel about having been around for what seems a really long time. Yet I feel young, and I feel like I'm still learning and growing as a person. Nevertheless, in my life I have gained some knowledge that I would like to share with others.

In compiling a list of forty lessons, I felt it was important for me to state each lesson in my own way. Thus, I did not consult the internet or any books for great thoughts to include. Everything in the list below is original to me, with maybe two or so exceptions that I'm sure filtered in from other sources.

I also sought to be as honest as possible. Unless I'm fooling myself, each statement tells how I truly feel about the subject at this moment. Perhaps this leads to some contradictions and inconsistencies, but if so it will all have to be worked out later.

Activity: Doing something always feels better than doing nothing.

Altruism: Helping someone demands investment of actual work, not just good thoughts.

Being outside: We’re supposed to have homes and shelters. We’re entitled to be fascinated by technology and the hobbies of culture. Yet, we’re meant to be outside, and spending regular time as part of the world feels right because it is right.

Cleanliness: A clean space is not an imposition of the self on one’s environment; it’s a contract between an individual and the environment.

Coffee: To me, coffee is the best thing ever to be made from the Earth.

Commitment: If you make a promise, you have to keep it.

Creativity: Originality emerges from doing what needs to be done.

Effort: It’s always possible to try harder.

Family: Quality time with family wins over everything else. Really.

Fortitude: Most people are tougher than they think.

God: The idea of God is intricate and profound but ultimately unreal, while self-styled priests and prophets are all-too-real.

Growing Older: It’s sometimes painful and at rare times saddening, but it's always an adventure.

Happiness: Happiness is neither a secret nor a product. It’s actually nothing more than mutual sharing.

Hardship: The only way to return from difficult times is to know and to cultivate those elements that are currently good, strong, and working.

Honesty: Speaking truthfully is always good, but knowing truth is very difficult and should never be taken lightly.

Illness: Everyone falls ill at some point or another. The only choice in the matter is what medicines to employ in response.

Laughter: Positive laughter is an acid that burns through all the crap of culture and ultimately leaves only happy people standing.

Liberty: Individual liberty is the very highest social value. Every important political moment centers on the fate of one person’s rights.

Love: Love is a living thing, always developing and changing, always becoming something more or different than it was before. The way it grows is what amazes.

Marriage: Marriage is easy. Life comes up with some interesting setbacks and challenges sometimes, but being married is not any kind of burden. Instead, it is the starting point for overcoming adversity.

Meals: A meal is the greatest thing, the symbol of what we are really here for.

Misfortune: Nothing about hunger, poverty, illness, or suffering is noble or desirable.

Money: Money is not a bad thing. The idea that it’s the root of all evil is a lie designed to distract attention from the people and institutions who are actually committing wickedness.

Morality: Thinking about how to define good and evil, and investigating the assumptions behind each definition – our own definitions as well as others’ – is the single most important intellectual activity we can undertake.

Music: Listening doesn’t have to be passive or one-way.

Nutrition: Eating wisely concerns physical health, mental well-being, personal morality, and understanding of what the universe is.

Opinions: The only sacred responsibility we have is to develop ideas that are uniquely and wholly our own.

Organization: A desk is organized. So is a house or an essay for school. And so is a life. But with a life, the organization is by things one does. One should therefore do things that follow logically from things done before. And one should do things that have the potential to lead elsewhere.

Parenting: The really surprising thing about my children – which I never expected or else which I had suppressed until it dawned on me – is how much I need them. Once they each arrived and established their special places in my mind and in my heart, I needed to be able to see them, sit with them, play with them, talk and sing with them, and care for them.

Politics: The political game that includes our U.S. offices, candidates, media, lobbies, business interests, grass-roots supporters and polarized spectators is highly unhealthy and will, I worry, prove very destructive before this system gets righted.

Potential: Potential can be an unfair and unnecessary burden to place upon oneself or upon another. It’s important to know that we can do more, accomplish more, and achieve more. Yet, it’s equally important not to define – and therefore limit – what one should do, in what way, and in what time frame.

Reading: Reading is a privilege and ought to be enjoyed as such.

Reality: Life and the universe are better than the stories we make up about them.

Religion: Religious institutions serve mainly as theaters, where everyone pays to participate in continuing a self-styled and communally vetted myth. Because this myth is more socially and psychically productive, it does not need to conform to truth.

Risks: Taking calculated, educated risks is necessary and good. As one cannot be ashamed by failing in an informed risk, so too can one find no greater exhilaration than succeeding in a deliberate venture of chance.

Self-doubt: A little self-doubt has value if it motivates positive action as a response.

Sex: Sex isn’t what parents or friends say. It isn’t what one can find in movies or on the internet. Sex doesn’t say anything about a person and it doesn’t tell anyone about love or intimacy. Sex is always and only about whatever two people mean to each other.

Success: Most everything worthwhile requires people working together.

Television: TV finally does nothing for one who wants to accomplish something serious.

Work/Job: Work and fun are often the same thing.

Mediocrity: Underrated?

While running - slowly - this morning, I ended up having one of those epiphanies that must surely afflict all the mediocre. Maybe I'll call it "having a Salieri," after the great mediocrity portrayed in the movie Amadeus. I just realized, and acknowledged, that not only am I not as good (smart, successful, impressive, etc.) as I always thought, but I may not be that good at all in the first place.

If this is true, well, at least I won't have to worry about being an underachiever. Ha ha, very funny, ha ha.

Anyway, I decided not to resign myself to this thinking. I decided not to decide it's true. Instead, I chose to understand that my life remains in a state of transition, which makes it unfair to judge it definitively at this time.

I also felt that continuing to work hard in all things would pay off. People who really work hard and dedicate themselves to projects that connect with others ultimately become recognized as the achievers, as the ones whose lives have meaning, substance and value.

What's the bottom line? I may have a mediocre intelligence, but it's manic - that's different, at least.