Oh dear.
I saw a very, very, very unfortunate seminar today. I'm taking a third year Victorian Lit. seminar, and every person in the class has to put on a 30 minute presentation based on a topic they've signed up for. Today was John's day. (I don't know why, but I've changed his real name.)
John signed up to talk about Tennyson's "Holy Grail" and Browning's "Childe Roland" -- both texts dealing with Arthurian legend. John is an older student working towards his second degree -- his first was in medieval studies. John told me that "he really should be up in front of a class", and has told our class that he writes 'speculative fiction'. John is a big geek.
And not the good kind. John is one of those geeks that really does lack social skills. He's got a terribly large ego (the kind that starts comments with "Well, I think x. And I'll tell you why...") and really doesn't know that he's not funny. Nearly everyone in the class hates him, except for me, who just feels sorry for him.
So, John's seminar meant that he got to grind his favourite axe: Arthurian legends. The outline up on the board when we came in read this way:
Prologue: I. A Thousand years and a day
II. The Hunt for the Sangreal
Epilogue: The Once and Future Genre.
In other words, this seminar literally contained no middle. John spent
45 minutes giving us the
entire history of Arthurian legend, from Geoffery of Monmouth to Chretien de Troyes to Malory and back again. Not only did he tell us all this unneeded background, he went into detail -- basically recounting most of the stories in his own, idiosyncratic style. We saw a pile of books next to him when we came in, and were quickly assured that all these books would be passed around to us -- and indeed, every time he mentioned a book, he passed it around, as if to prove that it really did exist.
He began the seminar by showing us his replica sword, which was named "Midnight Lightning". He passed that around too -- first exhorting us to "not swing it at anyone, or touch the steel with our oily hands -- I've had enough trouble about that with customs officials at the US border".
When we finally got to the actual readings, he cursorily gave us his own broad interpretations of them, then was about to move on to current manifestations of the grail legend when the professor (very nicely, I thought) said she'd like to have a little more discussion on the readings first. She helped us understand the very difficult texts, then gave John five minutes at the end of the class to finish up. At this point he passed around contemporary arthurian writings, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Mists of Avalon" and the DVD's of 'Excalibur' and 'Merlin'.
...
The students practically bolted out of the classroom.
So why do I tell you all this? Not to be gossipy, I promise. (Well, maybe I am being gossipy, but if I don't tell my story I'll burst, so I hope I can be forgiven for it) I tell you all this in order to explain the two main problems I have with this presentation:
1. Doing violence to the text
What struck me most about all the information John presented was that he really didn't seem interested in the Victorian poems themselves. Unlike every other presenter so far, he didn't give us critical interpretations of the text, or even insight into what it might have meant. He was interested in the history of the Arthurian legend -- and this was just a convenient forun in which to present his favourite hobby. This to me, seems very disrespectful of the text itself (not to mention the Victorian prof sitting next to him, and all his fellow-students). I'm an English student, and as such I think you should respect words. So many critics I see today don't really seem interested in what's actually been written. Sure, they're interested in the historical context, and whether the author was gay or not -- but often they ignore what the poem is trying to do. I am interested in the Arthurian legend, certainly -- but for the purposes of this course and for Tennyson and Browning, what I'm really interested in is how these authors change the Grail story to talk about some of their favourite themes (guilt, purposelessness, the destruction of the natural world by industrialization, etc). Too often, I think, discussion about texts just becomes a way for people to show us they're own interests and obsessions -- we read our own interests into the poem, instead of letting the poem tell us what it wants to say.
Yes, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a good story. But so is "Childe Roland" and "The Holy Grail" --and they're the focus of this class -- so shouldn't we talk about them?
2. Doing violence to yourself
I went to class today with a knot in the pit of my stomach. Why? Because, having shared a class with John for three months now, and talked to him quite a bit, I knew that his presentation was going to be like this. He, somehow, has convinced himself that he's likable and a good teacher. Don't misunderstand me -- he's certainly book smart, and his presentation today was (if nothing else), an impressive display of Arthurian legend knowledge. But it also proved, once and for all, that he really doesn't know how to interact with people. He didn't seem to understand that bringing his sword and 20 books to pass around the class would just annoy people, or that not everyone was interested in a 10 minute recap of all the major events of Chretien de Troyes' "Percivale".
And that just makes me sad. All this encyclopedic knowledge he has just reinfroces my theory that he has lots of time to spend alone, naming his sword and coming up with obscure Grail-related puns. I want to explain that he's alienating others with his strange demeanor and egotistical speaking style -- but I can't. I'd mortally offend him, first of all, and secondly I don't think he'd change.
I wish I could befriend him. I think he needs a friend (he certianly made a clumsy enough "So-- do you have a boyfriend?" reference early in our acquaintance in class). But the reality is, I find him pompous and irritating. But I continue to talk to him in class because I really do feel sorry for him. He's not making it easy for people to associate with him, and yet that's what he desperately needs; someone to talk to.
I had to leave the class at one point to 'go to the bathroom' at one point, simply because I was so embarrassed for him. I could see the rolled eyes and whispered remarks of my classmates where he couldn't. I wish he could change, have his ego pricked, make more of an effort to fit in and not to rub people the wrong way. But I don't think he will. He really is completely socially inept.
And that's just sad.
