:06:03
which explore mortality
in greater depth...
:06:06
than any body of work
in the English language.
:06:08
And I know for a fact that I am tough.
:06:11
A demanding professor.
:06:13
Uncompromising.
:06:15
Never one to turn from a challenge.
:06:18
That is why I chose to study John Donne...
:06:22
while a student
of the great E.M. Ashford.
:06:29
Oh, yes.
:06:33
Your essay on Holy Sonnet VI...
:06:36
is a melodrama with a veneer
of scholarship unworthy of you...
:06:39
to say nothing of Donne. Do it again.
:06:43
Begin with the text, Miss Bearing,
not with a feeling.
:06:47
"Death be not proud
:06:49
"Though some have called thee
mighty and dreadful, for
:06:53
"Thou art not so"
:06:55
You've missed the point of the poem...
:06:57
because you've used
an edition of the text...
:07:00
that is inauthentically punctuated.
:07:02
- In the Gardner edition...
- That edition was checked out...
:07:05
- Miss Bearing?
- Sorry.
:07:08
You take this too lightly.
:07:09
This is metaphysical poetry,
not the modern novel.
:07:13
The standards of scholarship
and critical reading...
:07:15
which one would apply to any other text
are simply insufficient.
:07:19
The effort must be total
for the results to be meaningful.
:07:24
Do you think that the punctuation
of the last line of this sonnet...
:07:28
is merely an insignificant detail?
:07:32
The sonnet begins with
a valiant struggle with death...
:07:35
calling on all the forces
of intellect and drama...
:07:37
to vanquish the enemy.
:07:40
But it is ultimately about overcoming
the seemingly insuperable barriers...
:07:44
separating life, death and eternal life.
:07:49
In the edition you chose,
this profoundly simple meaning...
:07:53
is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation.
:07:57
"And Death" capital D...
:07:59
"shall be no more;" semi-colon.