The Spirit of '72

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer will names be with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

As an undergraduate member of English 72, I wish to express approval of your recent editorial on that course. It is very difficult to state exactly what would suit the needs and tastes of persons who are being introduced to romantic poetry. But certainly more generalities and less minutiae are necessary. As a specific example, I object to devoting six lectures to the discussion of which came first, Hyperion or the Vision of Hyperion, and spending no time on the poems per se.

In this same connection, I think that most undergraduates are not so much interested in the development of a poet as in the poetry itself and its relation to the poetry of other periods. Entirely too much time is spent in English 72 in discussing the craft and method of composition of each poet.

The whole method and aim of the course, then, is too specialized for the average man who is looking for a general survey of the major 19th century poets. Unfortunately, he has no way of finding this out. Practically all the students of my acquaintance who are taking the course were expecting something much different and have been quite disappointed. . . . R. B. Schlatter '34.