June(verse)

...The situation is very difficult...

...It is the business of those in charge of high school students to see that sufficient extra-curricular reading of good literature be done...

...She cannot be sure whether she has just made a remark or asked a question which should be utterly taboo in polite society, or has just displayed the kind of ignorance that shocks the hearer, or has just wounded the one addressed in her sorest mental com-plex...

...There is something about a look of complete and open-mouthed amazement that paralyzes the beholder into silence...

...This, Romeo--the royal rose in red...

...second, that I have read it and consider it so outdated already, since it has been on the market a month, as to be amazed that she should even remember its existence...

...Is this, then, Juliet, the tall, white rose...

...I know, too, that even the classics had their day of birth and that some of them were best sellers at once...

...If this be done, then we shall revert to those happy times when our students had learned to write good English before they entered college, by study of the literary style of the masters, and when they came to us with minds enriched and deepened by the good food on which they had been fed...

...I am not at all of the opinion that no good literature is being produced...

...We teachers certainly are afflicted nowadays, despite the fact that there still remain a few students who believe us when we say that to read classic literature is ever so much more important than to read the latest best sellers, and who will do something by their liter- ary culture to stem the tide of anathemas that are hurled against us teachers of English by pedagogical and literary critics...

...The astonished look is a real refuge for the afflicted...

...We know, of course, that there isn't any real romance in the world...

...But, goodness, who'd be interested in somebody who wrote away back in the eighteenth century...

...It would be scream-ingly funny to read romance written for the credulous people of the eighteenth century...

...There is very little time for extra reading in the life of the college student pursuing a difficult course...

...21o THE COMMONWEAL June 26, 1929 twenties as an old maid would reckon them...

...Hush, you will hear, for well the night wind knows The words that once these parting lovers said Long since, in that dim land, that golden time Of youth's immortal honey-clustered hours, When two, amid the gentle nuptial chime, Wore joy as beautiful as breaking flowers, Yet brief, alas, as June, like to the stay Of these dear blooms that yearly bud and blow, Flinging with lavish hands their wealth away, Before they smile good-bye and softly go...

...Of course if she was an old maid, she couldn't write a good love story, unless perhaps she aired her Freudian repressed desires...

...but almost always the judgment of conscientious book reviewers went hand in hand with the judgment of the general reader...

...If the masterpieces of literature have not been already read, but few of them can be read before the student is graduated, no matter how earnest teacher and student are...

...If, however, these have already been read and need only to be reviewed by way of preparation for class analysis and interpretation, addi- tional readings may be required...

...However effective the astonished look may be against individual students, it is no weapon at all against those critics who are scolding us teachers of English because of the dearth of literary background and the lack of mastery of our language on the part of our college graduates...

...While she is groping about in her mind for the apology which certainly must be offered for whichever of these offenses has been committed, the one offended can make her quite happily at ease again by exclaiming, perhaps, "Oh, I have such a violent twinge of rheuma- tism just now l" She will be sure to leap into the breach offered, with a solicitous question about the length of time one has been bothered with the com-plaint or about the badness of the weather...

...Now, because I know how many other teachers are suffering these constant humiliations along with me, I have about decided to originate the club of the astonished look, despite the fact that I am sure ours is a lost cause among these ultra-modern students...

...it is a piece of real life that fairly burns the paper on which it is written...

...Now is the time for someone to offer a means to this end...

...She may interpret it in one of two ways: first, that I am simply amazed that she should even ask me whether I have read any book that is on the best-seller market...

...Once I nearly choked over those words, but now they sound natural on the lips of a seventeen-year-old...

...It will be readily seen why I despaired of trying to confuse the young lady by asking her if she had read literature that is immortal--I, who know only such naive literature as Macbeth and King Lear and Jane Eyre and The Scarlet Letter, along with certain mod- ern productions that I admire...

...Now I answer her with the best imitation I can produce of her own aston- ished look...

...J. CORSON MILrER...

...But those modern novels that recognize that fact and treat love as it is, a thing of passion that soon burns to ashes--well, it's a shame you haven't read Such-and-such by So- and-so...

...They were so sort of naive, I imagine, don't you...

...A novel, a book of poems, a group of plays, a collection of stories, read within a month mean much time and energy...

...Love's young dream is all an illusion...

...That's real literature for you...

...While she is puzzling out which of these interpretations would be cleverest for her to use, I switch her attention to something else...

...It gave the death blow to the Gothic romance...

...I admire much of our contemporary production...

...Now, that Gothic romance might be interesting...

...Now, condemnation on the part of conscien- tious book reviewers is almost a guarantee of wide sales...