Dead Poets Society

study session progressed. Knox collapsed onto a couch.
    “How was dinner?”
Charlie asked. “You look ; shell-shocked. What did they serve, Welton Mystery
Meat?”
    “Terrible,” Knox
wailed. “Awful! I just met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my
life!”
    Neil jumped up from
the study group and ran over to the couch. “Are you crazy? What’s wrong with
that?”
    “She’s practically
engaged to Chet Danburry, Mr. Mondo Jocko himself,” Knox moaned.
    “Too bad,” Pitts
said.
    “Too bad! It’s not
too bad, it’s a tragedy!”
    Knox shouted. “Why
does she have to be in love with a jerk?”
    “All the good ones
go for jerks,” Pitts said matter-of-factly. “You know that. Forget her. Take
out your trig book and figure out problem 12.”
    “I can’t just forget
her, Pitts. And I certainly can’t think about math!“
    “Sure you can.
You’re off on a tangent—so you’re halfway into trig already!” Meeks laughed
loudly.
    “Oh, Meeks! That was
terrible,” Cameron said, shaking his head.
    Meeks grinned sheepishly.
“I thought it was clever.”
    Knox stopped pacing
and faced his friends. “You really think I should forget her?”
    “You have another
choice?” Pitts said.
    Knox dropped to his
knees in front of Pitts as though he were proposing. “Only you, Pittsie,” he
implored, with an exaggerated sigh. “There’s only you!” Pitts pushed him away,
and Knox slumped into a chair in the lobby as the boys resumed their math.
    “That’s it for
tonight, guys,” Meeks said, breaking up the study group. “Tomorrow will bring
more work, fear not.”
    “Say, what happened
to Todd?” Cameron asked as they gathered up their books.
    “Said he wanted to
do history,” Neil said.
    “Come on, Knox,”
Cameron said. “You’ll survive this chick. Maybe you’ll think of something to
win her love. Remember, seize the day!” Knox smiled, got up from the couch, and
followed the boys to their rooms.
     
    The following
morning John Keating sat in a chair beside his desk. His mood seemed serious
and quiet.
    “Boys,” he said as
the class bell rang, “open your Pritchard text to page 21 of the introduction.
Mr. Perry”—he gestured toward Neil-—“kindly read aloud the first paragraph of
the preface entitled Understanding Poetry.”
    The boys found the
pages in their text, sat upright, and followed as Neil read: ‘“Understanding
Poetry, by Dr. J. Evan Pritchard, Phd. To fully understand poetry, we must
first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech, then ask two
questions: 1) How artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and 2)
How important is that objective? Question 1 rates the poem’s perfection;
question 2 rates its importance. Once these questions have been answered,
determining the poem’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the
poem’s score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its
importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the
poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron might score high on
the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the
other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a
massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great.”‘
    Keating rose from
his seat as Neil read and went to the blackboard. He drew a graph,
demonstrating by lines and shading, how the Shakespeare poem would overwhelm
the Byron poem.
    Neil continued
reading. “As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating
method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows, so will your
enjoyment and understanding of poetry.’”
    Neil stopped, and
Keating waited a moment to let the lesson sink in. Then Keating grabbed onto
his own throat and screamed horribly. “AHHHHGGGGG!!” he shouted. “Refuse! Garbage!
Pus! Rip it out of your books. Go on, rip out the entire page! I want this
rubbish in the trash where it belongs!”
    He grabbed the trash
can and dramatically marched down the aisles, pausing for each boy to deposit
the ripped page from his book. The whole class laughed and snickered.
    “Make a clean tear,”
Keating cautioned. “I want nothing left of it! Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, you are
disgraceful!” The laughter grew, and it attracted the attention of the Scottish
Latin teacher, Mr. McAllister, across the hall. Mr. McAllister came out of his
room and peeked into the door