St Johnsbury Academy - Lamp Yearbook (St Johnsbury, VT)

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14 THE ACADEMY STUDENT indeed indebted to the creator of the short story. This man was Edgar Al’an Poe. America is indebted to him for the greatest single achievement in American literature. His genius is doubly impressive when it is realized that in France and Russia, where the people are less familiar with his tragic life, Poe’s short stories are classics. Writing with the conception that a short story should be about a single incident and should create a single impression, Poe succeeded perfectly in carrying out his own ideals. In most of his own stories this impression or effect is one of horror. Dark and dismal scenes are presented. Disease and insanity are expressed in his characters. Murder lurks in their minds. Death is the key-note of his plots. Near the end of his life Poe wrote to James Russell Lowell, “My life has been a whim, impulse, passion, a longing for solitude, a scorn of all things present.” That same halo of mystery, gloom, and yearning for solitude that enveloped his life is found in his stories. Yet. contrary to his belief that his life was Avasted, it is evident in the course of the literature that has followed him that what he created shall live forever. Although the short story has changed in many ways it is evident that the best short stories of today are those that follow Poe’s idea of creating a single impression on the reader. Originality pays dividends in all phases of life, and this has proved exceptionally true in literature. Eugene O’Neill, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe combined new subject matter with new form in their particular fields of literature, and produced works Avhich may be described as truly great and truly American. - Nicholas Economou

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THE ACADEMY STUDENT 13 of Whitman’s work has been widely disputed. He has been challenged not as to the depth or importance of his work, but as to whether or not he has any poetic quality at all. However, it is generally understood that what he tried to create was something which should definitely express America. He put new life into American poetry. Bv introducing American subjects and American ideas and ideals he expressed his love for democracy. “Write a book of new things,” he wrote in his notebook. “Make no quotations and no reference to any other writers.” Of other poets like Shakespeare, Ovid, and Homer he commented: “All those are good — they are what they are — I know they should not have been different — I do not say I will furnish anything better— but instead I will aim at high immortal works — American, the robust, large, manly character — the perfect woman — the illustriousness of sex, which I will celebrate. — I will be a master of my own kind, making the poems as they pass or stay the poems of freedom and the expose of personality — singing in high tones Democracy and the New World of it through these states.” With these ideas in mind, Walt Whitman went on to write a book of poems entitled Leaves of Grass, which is considered his masterpiece. A very familiar poem on Democracy is found in this book. It is called For you, O Democracy. “Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades With the life-long love of c rr des. I will plant companionship m.vrc as trees along the rivers of America, and All along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies. I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each others’ necks By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades, For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you. ma femme, For you, for you, I am trilling these songs.” Along with this new subject matter, Whitman introduced for the first time in modern literature a new form of poetry, the form often called free verse. Free verse has no metre but has a definite rhythm. It may or may not ’•hyme. Although received rather skeptically at first, free verse gained rapid popularity with the American people, and other poets began to appreciate its value and employed it in their poems. Amy Lowell, famed romanticist, found that free verse could express grace and beauty more eloquently than the conventional forms, and she used it to a wide extent. Carl Sandburg, one of outmost popular contemporaries, uses free verse in expressing problems of the slums and of smoky cities. Thus Walt Whitman created a new form of poetry which America is proud to call its own. In this day of speed and hurry and bustle the short story is the favorite form of fiction. With this fact in mind it can readily be seen that the world is i

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THE ACADEMY STUDENT 15 CLASS HISTORY FINALS FOR 1940 R-R-R-R-R-R-Ring (The bell rings and the buzzing ceases.) Booming Voice: Turn your tests over. Read the directions carefully before starting and then write with pen dipped in humor. Ques. I—Describe the first few weeks of the memorable fall of 1936. Ans. I—T’was but a short time ago we meekly sought out room 6. How we labored over the first few weeks’ homework! (I wonder what there was about those teachers that scared us so. Gosh! what else happened??) Ques. II—Tell something interesting that happened in the sophomore year. (Please omit the fact that you told the incoming freshmen where to get off, usually in the wrong place.) Ans. II—Tanned and freckled, the more steady freshmen proudly stepped into sophomore shoes. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it?) That year Robert Frost established a summer home only seven miles from St. Johnsbury. (My, it must be nice to be famous enough so that the “Student” seeks an interview.) Ques. Ill—If you have not mentioned a teacher in the previous question, answer the following one. When would you have most enjoyed a teacher’s company? Ans. Ill—During our sophomore year our faculty developed a wanderlust. Most noticeable were the following three: (Maybe if 1 give three I'll get extra credit.) To begin with, our g' ial U. S. history teacher was beckoned to the greeting of beautiful Hawaii. Tales of these islands were welcome diversions from the ever lasting task of making seniors “think” (“some of you aren’t thinking”.) Miss Grover’s travels in the wild and woolly West brought back a thrilling line, too long for a chapel period. Mrs. Goodrich crossed the bounding main to sunny Italy. (I always did want to sail the seven seas. Dear me, I could have crossed two off my list.) P. S. Mr. Smith and Mr. Redington both booked for a long voyage on the uncharted sea of matrimony. Ques. IV—Tell about something that has material stability and which caused a hubbub in tlie junior class? Ans. IV—Most of us were budding out satisfactorily but needed some little thing to make us feel secure. So, we got hitched to the Academy. If you can’t guess now, just look at your fingers. Here was something to make our junior boys houseclean their fingernails. Ques. V—As long as you have been itching to get at this question, write concisely and thoughtfully what you will remember about your last year in the Academy? Ans. V—1940 was the census year and again the events of the past ten years are coming back to light.