charlie dalton 𝒙 reader

iii. UNDERSTANDING POETRY

CHAPTER THREE!
( UNDERSTANDING POETRY. )

   THE NEXT MORNING, all you could think about was your excitement for Keating's class. You had never had a teacher like him. All the other staff members were so mundane and stern, Keating was full of passion and unpredictability.

When block four, English, finally rolled around, you excitedly took your seat in his classroom.

Mr. Keating sat at his desk at the front of the room and opened a book.

"Ladies and gentlemen, open your text to page twenty-one of the introduction. Mr. Perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface, entitled 'Understanding Poetry'?"

Neil flipped through his book and began reading in a clear voice. "Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem's greatest becomes a relatively simple matter."

Mr. Keating stepped up to the chalkboard and prepared to draw something.

"If the poem's score for perfection is plotted along 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," Neil continued.

Keating started to draw a graph on the board, demonstrating this point. Most of the other students (not Charlie, he seemed to be enthralled in his own drawings) and I, began to copy down the graph.

"A sonnet by Byron may 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. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practise this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry." Neil set the book down and took off his glasses. Keating turned away from the chalkboard with a smile.

"Excrement. That's what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. We're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry," Keating said calmly.

You looked down at your work in confusion before scribbling it out and looking back up at Mr. Keating.

"I mean, how can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? I like Byron, I give him a 42, but I can't dance to it." Classmates chuckled around you. You noticed that Charlie now appeared to be interested in the class. If Keating could get Charlie interested, he must be a god.

"Now I want you to rip out that page," Keating said.

What? Rip out a textbook page? What kind of teacher tells you to rip out a textbook page? It seemed the rest of the class was thinking the same thing, they all looked at him like he had gone mad.