Where Was Rumi When I Was An Undergrad?

Rumi Fragment:

“If you are a man of learning, read something classic, a history of the human struggle and don't settle for mediocre verse” (23). 

Oh man, in my undergraduate we had to read the Romantics. I love the Romantics. I love them so much I should have never studied them. Do you want to know how I know this? Because I ended up reading second or third grade crap from little known authors in the class labelled "Romantics". And what we read of the major authors was not what I liked. It was a terrible class. We managed to find some little known female authors, dug up by righteous feminist practitioners, and we read their works over what is usually considered, by just about anyone, to be the Romantics. I was told I was a classicist because I finally was fed up reading pieces that were left unread because stronger pieces existed. I took an entire class reading and studying and discussing mediocre verse. It is not worth it. It is not good for one’s soul. At least it is not good for my soul. 

But this may just be my classicism. The best part of the whole class was when I finally had the courage to voice my opinion. I asked how studying some very little known and terribly written words, I would not dare to call it poetry, was going to help me say I know about the Romantics? The teacher explained why he had chosen these authors. The explanation was less than satisfactory. He then said to me: Byron, you remind me of my father. I said: Jim, your father sounds like a brilliant man. Jim: He was, but he was a classicist and thought they were the only ones who should be read. I had to concede that I was now at that point. I felt he had helped nudge me to that extreme point. I do not have a problem admitting I have different value systems. But don't nudge me slowly to a corner and be surprised when I get pissed off finding out I'm making an argument I never meant to in the first place. I was just to the right on the classicism line, that class helped me all the way to right. I'm not sure I've ever recovered.

The authors and their works that we looked at weren't terrible. I had just gone into the class with different expectations. And what does life do with expectations? Smashes them to shit anytime they are discovered. The world, as a natural entity, does not care about meeting our expectations. We should not expect much anyway. All expectations are is fancy, fancy based on our wild imaginations. 

Anyway, I'm off to read some more classical human struggle books and poems. I haven't yet written the next best one so I'll settle for some other classicist's work. My classicist club is exclusive. It is easy to get into though. One only needs good taste to qualify. Cheers.