Department of English

Our aim will be insight without tears. St.Augustine's conviction that
a work should be examined with diligent scrutiny until an interpretation
contributing to the reign of charity is produced" will inform our readings
of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, and inform, as well, the
instructor's attempts to maintain and manifest a generous, respectful, and
affectionate estimation of his students.  Each of us is equally a text
requiring a charitable reading, and the demonstration of an ample,
multifold reading of such master poems as Paradise Lost  and Hamlet  should
help us to see how we might read ourselves, among others, as (in prophecy
and thence in history) the instances of beauty and genius we will be, and
are.  Every effort will be made to diminish anxiety, and to magnify the
certain excellence within both book and reader.  I intend to regard my
students gently, and from that intention, and the genius of our authors,
the rest of course follows.  Please phone me at 417-5102 with any questions
about the course.