1964
A view of Brisbane, where I took my Senior and did my first university degree
Met Janet Coomber
https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2020/01/janet.html
English I student (as an "evening" student)
An amusing memory from 1964 when I was a student in the English Dept. at the University of Qld. It was in English I which was heavily populated by student teachers, who had to do that subject as a course requirement for their teaching diploma. So, as it turned out, I was the only real literary enthusiast in my tutorial group. I was there because I wanted to be.
My tutor was a "Mrs Curry", who was a very good looking woman who undoubtedly made Mr Curry happy by having a part-time job. And she too was a genuine literary enthusiast. So we got on well. Teachers have always liked me because I understand immediately what they are trying to convey. So I was undoubtedly her star pupil
So one day we were studying a poem which turned out to be an ode. It was probably Shelley's ‘To a Skylark’. Mrs Curry identified the poem as an ode and asked the class, "What sort of an ode is it?" All heads in the class stayed down, looking at their books, including mine. But I silently mouthed the word "Pindaric". I did not want to be the only smartypants in the room and actually say it. But I had evidently been under expectant observation by Mrs Curry, who promply said, without naming me, "Go on. Say it" which I did, to her obvious satisfaction.
As I said, it is satisying to a teacher when student really knows the subject. But it was one of the many occasions when the student teachers looked at me askance. Student teachers were not as much the bottom of the academic barrel as they are these days but were certainly not the cream of the academic crop. But it was amusing to be so watched that even an unuttered word was taken as a desired answer.
Curiously, the one subject that I did badly in during my first two years was English -- generally my best subject. A breakdown of the marks is informative, however. I actually got the highest mark awarded that year for the poetry paper but bombed in the drama paper -- 38% or some¸such. I should by rights have failed but they could not bring themselves to fail their best poetry student.
I had at that time never seen a live play so maybe that had a bit to do with my poor showing in drama. I still suspect idiosyncratic marking, however.
I could easily have made a career as an academic in English as English has always been my best subject but I just could not see the point of studying something that should essentially be a recreation.
Literature is written to entertain. If it does not do that it is a failure. So if you have to study it to get its message, you are not treating as it was meant to be treated and are in any case studying something that is irrelevant by its own standards.
It is true that literature may sometimes embody useful philosophical insights but that is essentially incidental and also rare.
Anyway, I put my money where my mouth was and specialized instead in a topic I took at the time to be more practically useful psychology.
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E.&O.E.
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