ABSTRACT
Thbre is only one aim in teaching poetry in the classroom: that is that the pupils should enjoy it. If there JL are any more speculative aims they exist outside the classroom and can only be served through enjoyment. To give pleasure should be the only aim in teaching the Arts; for they were conceived in order to give pleasure. If one’s teaching of them omits pleasure, then one is in fact giving something false, something different. Shakespeare without pleasure is not Shakespeare. All of these bogeys are obvious enough when one considers them in abstract; but while one is teaching they can quite easily creep in unnoticed. In self-defence the English teacher becomes calligrapher, inspector of fountain pens, and principal detector of un-washed hands; and, worse still, he starts talking about things that an English master has no right to mention, like ‘the real work involved’ in his subject. Pleasure is still the only aim.
