Education: Wasted on the Young?

Examiner column for April 14.

    On one of my seniors’ last days in high school, they heard a world-renowned scholar of James Joyce lecture on “Dubliners.”  He took an afternoon off from his immersion in Joyce’s first work to speak to them about two of the stories they were studying. Most found it interesting, and a few responded enthusiastically, but in several ways his talk was wasted on the young.

    Coilin Owens is the scholar in question, and he is Professor Emeritus at George Mason University, where I teach part-time. He left Ireland long ago to study in the United States where, ironically, there is much more opportunity to do serious Joyce scholarship than in Irish universities, where they consider Joyce a tourist industry.

    During the thirty years Coilin has been researching and publishing on Joyce, I have been reading and rereading Joyce in my classes. I have probably taught “Dubliners” to a couple thousand students, and each time I learn something new. With Joyce the learning curve is particularly steep because so much is left unstated. Reading his prose is like climbing a steep mountain every time you do it—and the “scenic views” are as breathtaking the twentieth time you visit them as they were the first time. The “Dubliners” stories just keep getting better.

    Coilin is a scholar who inhabits the period he studies. He reads daily papers from the early 1900s because Joyce did, and reads the books in Joyce’s library in the editions he owned in order to trace their influence. Of course he also reads Joyce’s prose carefully. In answer to a student’s question about how he goes about interpreting the language, Coilin replied: “First, I memorize it.”

    For me, his lecture was eye-opening. He illustrated with his passionate delivery how satisfying an intellectual pursuit can be, and how much wisdom comes with time spent on a subject you love. I last heard him speak on “Dubliners” four years ago, and his words were just as intelligent then. But this time he was better: he showed us that by studying Joyce you study the world, that by probing the “signs” he gives us we can find answers to perennial human questions about what’s important in life, and the futility of the pursuit of perfection.

    To illustrate this last point, Coilin analyzed Joyce’s use of the word  “gnomon,” a geometric shape missing a corner. The word takes on symbolic significance throughout the stories as  “a figure aspiring to be a perfect square, but missing something—just like we all aspire to be a perfect figure, but never quite make it.” These words of Coilin’s “blew my mind,” observed my student Joe.

    I felt lucky to be present at his talk because I realized why Joyce never becomes repetitious or boring, no matter how often I teach him. Yet most of my students did not have similar epiphanies. They liked Professor Owens’ words because they illustrated serious scholarship, but didn’t see that they could apply those words to their own lives, as well.

    But for Joe and a few others, Coilin Owen’s words resonated far beyond “Dubliners.” Education is sometimes, but not always, wasted on the young.

Comments

[mikawendy]

I loved reading Dubliners in high school and college. The entire last paragraph of "The Dead" is *perfection*.

That, and also,
"Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth..."

[Dr. Jacobs]

It's always so wonderful to hear from a former student!

[evelyn]

I was WOWed by his passion!!!!!!!!!!! Of course there are times when I think "did Joyce REALLY intended to do that" just like how I think about every other author whose work we have analyzed to the last period. But I must say, I was really impressed. It just made me think that I hope one day, I will be as passionate about something as he is. And then I tell myself, I will.

Thanks for the eye opening experience Dr. J!