Corporation Votes to Omit Norton Lectures for 1954-55

For the first time since the war, and for the third year since the chair was endowed, there will be no Charles Eliot Norton lecturer on poetry this year, it was revealed yesterday.

The Corporation has voted to omit the lectureship this year because none of the scholars invited could accept, and it was too late to issue further invitations after the declinations were received.

Last year's lecture series was given by Sir Herbert Read on the general topic "Art and the Development of Human Consciousness." Other recent lecturers have included Aaron Copland, Thornton Wilder, and E. E. Cummings.

Because of the decision to omit the lectureship, next year's general field will be in literature. The plan of rotation for lecturers calls for a literature topic every other year, with fine arts and music alternating in the years between.

The lectureship began in 1925 and has continued annually since, with the exception of the academic years 1927-8 and 1934-5 and the war years, 1941-2 through 1945-6.

Selection of next year's lecturer is expected to be made this fall, according to Archibald MacLeish, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory.

Ex-Lecturer Here

Other members of the committee are John P. Coolidge '35, associate professor of Fine Arts; Renato Poggioli, professor of Slavic; Perry G. E. Miller, professor of American Literature; and Huntington Cairns, director of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Despite the omission of the Norton lectures, a former lecturer is now at the University. He is Sigfried Giedion, visiting professor of Architecture from the University of Zurich, who gave the lectures in 1937-38.

Although nominally, the lectureship is for poetry, the endowment calls for a broad definition of the word, in order to encompass the creative arts, such as music and painting, as well as literature.