Chaucer For The Janitor

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Your editorial on English 1 interested me a good deal. I have taken the course, and in general I heartily agree with your estimate. But it seems to me that the question is incorrectly put. You take the point of view that the undergraduates should concern themselves with Chaucer the poet (I agree!), while graduates should be principally occupied with historical and linguistic matters (here I object!). Let me assure you that for a graduate Chaucer is, or should be, also primarily a poet, as he is, or should be, for the professors, congressmen, the janitor of the building, etc. If anything, he should be more poet to the graduates, the teachers-to-be, lest they later succumb to the temptation to treat him as a unit in an historical series or even merely as something to be decently garlanded with so-called facts. The objection, as I see it, is a deep one, and not to be done away with by the reorganization of one course. And it should be noted that the theory that a student should first acquire some facts concerning an author, a period, or what have you, is an erroneous one. Any one who is willing to suspend aesthetic appreciation for several of his formative years is not likely ever to regain his capacity for it. In any case, grinding for facts represents a heavy spiritual loss, as thousands can testify.

Lately some voices have been heard crying in the wilderness. And since I cannot here deal adequately with this subject, may I point out for the benefit of your readers, should you choose to print this letter? First, the most thorough of them all, "Academic Illusions" by Prof. Martin Schuetze, a recent book which has been highly praised by Professor Dewey. The last chapters are an excellent attack along these lines. As Dewey says, they show beautifully the fundamental differences between literature, an art, and linguistic science. Then, from a somewhat different point of view, "Our Lost Leaders" by Professor I. A. Richards ("The Saturday Review of Literature," April 1, 1933). There is also an article by Professor Hillyer, in a recent "Forum," and one, not specifically literary, by Ezra Pound in the November "Harkness Hoot." Peter A. Pertzoff 1G.