ran CADRE, TUES., JAN. 22, 1971+ Page 1+ _. ,

THE TEACHING SPIRIT or um

What can you say about an‘ English department that , died? Be blunt, call it?%” boring? Be clever, say it moves, "With little motion and less speed?" Be, angry, say they rape the beauty of their tradition? Be calm, which is admitting insanity? Or be honest, maintain san- ity, and try to convince others of the truth of a story that would be more at home as a headline segment in a Ripleys' Believe It Or Not article like you see in newSpapers? My story began on a sunny day in early September when I was standing in our local rink, painfully hungover, and hopelessly confused. I am, or at least was at the time, an English major. As a matter of fact, I have been here now for three ye- ars and have never before even considered the possi-. bility of being anything but an English major. Eng— lish Literature facinates me, that may sound perver- ted to some, but it is true nonetheless. I was heavily involved in the study of oetics, a particular pass—

ion of mine, bﬁt in an eff; ,

ort to vary my studies in the tradition had decided Ito~shift some of my emphas- is to drama, to get_a_bet- ter perSpective on the en— tire tradition. So I dece 'ided to do a special stud- ies course on wallace Ste; -vens, and take some Shakes- pear_and some modern dRama.

As luck would have it such courses were being offered (don't laugh, have you ever tried to take a course in continental literature from the English dept?) At this point I think I should say that I am not going to hide anything,/I'm going to tell the truﬁﬁ, and mention peo- ple's n “es, I have no ch00 ice...

I enlisted in Prof, Coyle's Shakespear course, and Prof. Frazer's more contemporary drama course. The tutorial at that time was undecided. how we get to the action . part of my story...

To my surprise, nobody in the English dept. seemed to know anything about Wallace

Stevens. That seemed strange,

I always thought he was qu- ite a major American poet, but all was not lost, I was informed Prof. Beum was qu- alified, an interesting wo- rd to say the least, to han-

dle my proposed tutorial. But where was Prof. Beum? In Ontario. Well, I_had l little time to lose, but I decided to wait and do it with him anyway. Three e

weeks went by. With the co- ming of the fourth week I was was informed he was so- mewhere around the campus. Another week of cloak a d

dagger operations trying to find the man proved trying but finally I succeeded in

seeing him. He said he didn't

want to do it. I arranged to see him anyway, and aft- er a session of what came close to pleading, he agre- ed to try it. Incidentally, I was informed by him that the reason he hadn't been in his office was because he didn't like to see stud- ents. That was strange, I thought, but let it go at that...

By this time my other two drama courses were well underway. It was here that I received perhaps my grea-' test shock. They consisted of the respective professors

‘reading the plays aloud for

fifty minutes, three times a week. Let me explain that the last time anyone had read plays to me Was in gr- ade nine, and then it was seldom. I didn't know how _ to accept this approach to the subject of drama, and it was here that I made a fatal mistake. I simply ignored it. I very seldom went to classes, and when I did I composed poems while in the background professors read, or asked such pointed questions as the meaning-of the word_ improvisation. My first 'test'in subject matter was in Prof. Coyle's Shakespear class. I arrived ten min- utes late with a pen that was out of ink, ran out of time on the question I was doing, and was given a 55 for not answering Part B. I thought of going to see Prof. Coyle, but the last thm Ihmidmm ﬂmtllmd been sternly about taking tytorials. Despite his sus- picions I was given $4 in the tutorial(my English marks last year were be- tween 85 and 90.) I was indignant about all this, and totally aleniated from Prof. Frazer's course as w well, so when the time for her mid-term paper came ' along I told lies, bull- shitted and wrote clearly the worst paper of my aca- demic career. She caught

me in th8\lieS, and wondered how I could dislike George Bernard Shaw, having only read three full plays ofz> his, plus exerpts from a half a dozen more. I was caught offguard and remained silent... ‘ Things just went from bad

to worse. I fell into a pit of seemingly endless dep-

"ENGLISH:

ression over the whole thing, my drinking grew worse, and my studies came to a compl- ete halt. By the time final exams came aroung I was a confirmed alcoholic, dis- gusted with university in general, and totally alenia- ted from the Englisthept. Second, Frances Frazer. Prof, Frazer taught me to hate Shaw instead of dislike him. She defined words like improvisation, phrases like phallic symbol, and genera- lly succeeded in convincing

‘*me that contemporary drama

must be very boring indeed,

'*I was working on the wharf

in Summerside a lot, going to see my dying grandfather a lot, was late with my term paper, and before, I could explain was informed that my paper would start with the grade C-.”Talk about adding insult to injury. In any event, my English marks were a 50 in Shakespearian drama, a 55 in more contem— porary drama, and an 84 in a study of Wallace Stevens. I no longer take English cou- rses, I take philos0phy, political science and hist- ory courses... ' v In conclusion, let me eval- uate the people I have men- tioned. First, Robert Beum, Prof. Beum taught me noth- ing. We only talked twice, and I have no idea why he gave me an 84. Perhaps it was for sheer patience un- der pressure. ‘ _ " ~ Finally, J.J. Coyle. Brof. Coyle taught me the complete lyrics of Danny Boy, which he sings before and after every class, plus a sadness if that is all William Sha— kespear means.... To write this article has.‘ given me a great deal of pain. I feelmdirty having to do it, but am some- what desperate to make my' ‘views public. I don't know what's to be done about the English Dept. Perhaps they are giving satisfactory ser— ~vice to hundreds of other ‘students, but if you feel like I do about the depart— ment do what I should have ‘donE, and I Will do .0000. Ignore them. Larry LeClair