Lessons from the Dead Poets

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute; We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion….Poetry, beauty, romance, and love: these are what we stay alive for.”

Yesterday I re-watched Peter Weir’s film Dead Poets Society. I first saw this movie when I was only 13, and it still holds up 17 years later. Of course I’m biased, because I love any movie Weir makes (check out his filmography here), but this one is especially poignant for me as an English teacher. The above quote is spoken by Robin Williams’s character John Keating, the English instructor that inspires a group of students.

As I watched the film again this time, I was struck by how it depicts poetry as a dangerous, subversive activity that is potentially life-changing, romantically, spiritually, and even tragically. The boys of the Dead Poets Society sneak off to a cave to read poetry. They tear pages out of their books (at their instructor’s orders), and they embrace the passion of the words – carpe diem. It’s definitely an English teacher’s fantasy to have her class come alive and read poetry as it was meant to be, so powerful and full of life.

I couldn’t, though, turn off the cynic in me. Since I do have four years of classroom experience, I know how rare it is to have even one student enjoy poetry, much less jump on his desk declaring it to the world. There were things John Keating said to his students, that I have said to my own, and the reaction I got was silence, shoulder-shrugs, and even an occasional eye-roll.

Still, I enjoyed the movie because it reminded me of why I love to read and write poetry myself. As Keating says, we don't read or write because it's cute (or ironic, now), but because we are filled with passion, and the beauty of language can express this. We should never be too lazy to act, too indifferent to care, or too embarrassed to strive for beauty.