At Ease in Zion: Some Reflections on Teaching English Literature in Israel

Abstract

I OMIT THE DETAILS of my arrival from New York, and go at once, as a teacher should, to the classroom-though only one of the essential ecstasies occurred there. The other-the ecstasy of having come home-was deeper. But it might not seem relevant (though it was) to the intellectual encounter I am about to describe. And I could not discuss it calmly in any case, though years have passed since it first struck me. At the lectern the first morning, I tried not to look through the window, because not far beyond it lay the road to Jerusalem and the other temptations that from the moment of my arrival had spun me crazily from delight to delight. I looked carefully down, and remembered the strategy that would allow me to begin work: the astonishment of being here would serve as background, adding energy but not distraction. It was perhaps poor strategy for the very outset, but afterwards it served well. Within a few days, the classroom had become familiar ground, and I had lost myself among familiar images and thoughts. And soon, as usual, was completely oblivious. During class at least, I noticed nothing, except the books. In the survey course I skipped Chaucer completelythat I would risk the second time around, in the original text-and went directly into Spenser. How could anyone not love Spenser? We would read Book One of the Faerie Queene, I announced, in the opening three weeks. And off we went, pricking on the plaine. Some of the students looked at me queerly. Knights? Crosses? Monsters? Magicians? And this was English? In the novel course I resisted Tom Jones for some time, tinkering with Defoe and Smollett, but then strolled into Somersetshire, while visions of Shandy Hall (our next stopover) danced in my head. And in the salt mines-two sections of freshman compositionI announced that, in addition to the heavy reading assignments, a composition would be due each week. More queer looks, including some from the chairman. He observed a class a month into the semester-partly, it turned out, in response to the first rumblings of student unrest-and wrote a glowing report. But his eyes said that I was a man ignoring important realities. My students' eyes said the same thing. But I double checked, saw nothing apparently wrong, and went on. The rumblings produced nothing substantial. I even began to notice some argumentative excitement of the sort I had revered since my days as a student at C.C.N.Y. And so I continued more than content. Before me in the classroom