University of Virginia Library

Changing Concepts

I don't really think, you know, that it makes really a great
deal of difference whether you teach people how to read
carefully or how you should analyze a poem, because there are
many people who are really able to be taught how to interpret a
poem very carefully, who don't really care for it....they don't
want to do this, and they'll do it all right, and they'll do it very
well.... but the thing is, it will never touch them....

It doesn't seem to me that the ability to train people to do
craftsman like things is the same thing as what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is to persuade a person to change his
way of conceiving of literature....his whole conception of
himself and his knowledge. And you're not going to do this by
showing him how to read a poem. You're going to do this
because by talking about poetry in some way you're going to
show him a relevance of what he is doing and can do to what he
is missing and still can do, and force him to say...."By God, for
ten years I've been reading and haven't really learned what it all
means! So now I have to go back and begin from the beginning
again. By God, what a terrible thing it is! But I'm going to do
it....because nothing else matters." When that happens, then you
don't have to worry about teaching him the craft of reading.

There are — and this is what is important for us — people
who are serious about literature, to whom it's significant as an
important part of their life, and they want to find a way to
coming to terms with it. Those are the people who can be
touched by good teaching.