Dead Poets Society: the play

Scene 5: English Class

Dead Poets

*are talking through each other. Waiting for Mr. Keating to enter the room*

Knox

*walks in*

Neil

How was dinner?

Knox

Terrible. Awful.

Charlie

What? What happened?

Knox

Tonight, I met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my entire life.

Neil

Are you crazy? What's wrong with that?

Knox

She's practically engaged... To Chet Danbury.

Pitts

Too bad.

Knox

Too bad? It's worse than the bad Pitts. It's a tragedy! A girl this beautiful in love with

such a jerk!

Pitts

All the good ones go for jerks you know that.

Cameron

Yeah, forget her. Open your book and try reading the introduction already.

Knox

I can't just forget her, Cameron. And I certainly can't think about English.

Mr. Keating

*Walks in*

Charlie

Did you see her naked?

Knox

Very funny Dalton.

Mr. Keating

Gentlemen,

All

*stop talking*

Mr. Keating

Open your textbooks on page 21 of the introduction. Mr. Perry, will you

read the opening paragraph of the preface, untitled understanding poetry?

Neil

"Understanding poetry" by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with it's meter, rhymes and figure

of speech. Then ask 2 questions. One: how artfully has the objective of the poem been

rendered? And two: how important is that objective? Question one rates the poem

perfection. Question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively easy matter. If a poem's score for perfection is plotted-

Mr. Keating

*Starts drawing an x-y graphic on the board. Drawing what Neil is saying*

Neil

On the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then

calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of the greatness. A sonnet by

Byron might score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal. A

Shakespearian poem on the other hand scores high both horizontally and vertically,