Students and faculty alike arrived early to the Library to assure they had good seats for Kevin Dettmar’s lecture last Thursday evening.
Dettmar, an English professor at Pomona College, came to Linfield to give a multi-media lecture based on an article of his that was previously published in the Atlantic.

The aforementioned article was Dettmar’s first big break being published to a big name magazine, and the online comments he received about his criticism of the beloved film “Dead Poets Society” were anything but warm and fuzzy.

Dettmar began his talk with a video clip from the film’s most memorable scene, Mister Keeting’s “What will your verse be” monologue.

It was immediately apparent that Dettmar fostered an undying hatred of “Dead Poets Society.”

A friend of Dettmar’s recommended he see the film in theaters when it came out during the final year of his PhD program.

Straightaway after Dettmar saw the film, he was terrified of anyone thinking that the lessons ‘taught’ by Mister Keating in and out of the classroom are what English teachers profess for a living.

“It’s literally fandom,” Dettmar said.

Dettmar wanted to be sure that the audience knew that he is in full support of passion in the literature classroom, but that passion alone without literary analysis is just plain dangerous.

He then went on to criticize Mister Keating’s apparent lack of context of the poetry he presents to his students in the film.

“He makes the poem say what he wants it to say,” Dettmar said. “It’s not just wrong, it’s completely wrong.”

Dettmar pegs the film to be portraying poetry appreciation rather than poetry criticism, which is what true English teachers should be teaching in their classrooms.

Much of what Mister Keating tries to instill in his students is finding their own voice. Dettmar made the astute observation that for all of Mister Keating’s talk of students having their own voice, he actually allows them very little opportunity to develop that.

In one of the film’s scenes, Mister Keating has all the students stand atop his desk to look at things in a different way. What Dettmar pointed out, though, was that the students were looking at things the same way their teacher just did.

“The boys are marching to the beat of a different drum… but it’s Keating’s drum,” Dettmar said.

Dettmar certainly left the audience with some things to think about as far as the film’s portrayal of education goes.

While most people can find some aspect of appreciation for the argument he presents, not everyone saw eye-to-eye with Dettmar’s criticism.

“Although I agree with Professor Dettmar’s arguments and find a lot of injustices to literature in the movie itself, I feel like it’s kind of irrelevant to be analyzing a movie that was made for entertainment,” junior Camille Weber said. “It’s supposed to be a movie that inspires people to learn – that’s why it’s so watered down.”

Junior Justin Frederick agreed with Dettmar that the film was a bit of a short-sided representation of poetry as a whole, but admitted that the film had actually had an impact on him personally.

“When I first watched [“Dead Poets Society”] I was 16 or so,” Frederick said, “And I wasn’t very interested in literature or poetry at all. Robin Williams was able to portray it in a light that was more interesting to me, as somebody that was more interested in science and business.”

Frederick said that the film played a big part in shaping his interest in the subject of literature.

“I’m sure if I was an English critic that I would be more angry about it,” Frederick said, “But I think that it was more of just a fun movie that sparked some interest in people who wouldn’t really have cared about things along those lines otherwise.”

Mikenna Whatley can be reached at [email protected].

Correction: This article has been updated to include an addition to a quote by Camille Weber. The original quote read, “I feel like it’s kind of irrelevant to be analyzing a movie that was made for entertainment.” It has been changed to read, “Although I agree with Professor Dettmar’s arguments and find a lot of injustices to literature in the movie itself, I feel like it’s kind of irrelevant to be analyzing a movie that was made for entertainment.”