April 9 2015 Susan Vendler

Q: There is this inbuilt hunger to learn. You can't crush that.

A: No. Students may be learning in different fields in different eras. In Shakespeare's time the main way you could advance was to be trained verbally. The indispensable skills were oratory, eloquence. These days, not even the "best" schools offer that intense training in language: social status is not gained by translating Greek and Latin.

The studies that are prized in the way of learning now are indeed the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] subjects, just as the arts of reading and writing were praised and prized in the Renaissance. Our era will discover new aspects of learning: You won't get Shakespeare's plays, but you may get the explanation of dark matter. I don't regret this, as long as there's support for earnest students of any bent.

Q: Even if that something isn't poetry, perhaps?

A: There were whole centuries without much brilliant poetry. Whenever warfare occupies the resources of the state, there is less support for the arts, less patronage available for poets. Poetry may suddenly become important again here, as it did during the political troubles of Ireland and Poland not long ago.

Q: You refuse not to have hope, don't you?

A: I just have faith in the gene pool. The gene pool is always casting up musicians, poets, people who want to create theater, as well as scholars and teachers.