The Round Table is a monthly column by Upper School English Teacher Tom Keating.
I began a master’s in Comparative Literature at Columbia University in 1978. The more I spent time on campus, the more I heard the name Edward Tayler. He was a professor of English, reputed to be the best classroom teacher at the university. Because he taught in the college and I was a graduate student, our paths did not intersect. But the more stories I heard, the more intrigued I became about this man. A classmate who had gone to Columbia College told me that Tayler’s class had made her decide to be an English teacher. Another friend said that Tayler always began his Shakespeare lecture by drawing a kitty cat on the board. Finally, I decided to crash his Literature Humanities class and see for myself what all the fuss was about.
When I entered the lecture hall, virtually every seat was taken. Tayler was at the podium, diminutive in stature, wearing reading glasses and holding a book. As I settled in, Tayler began reciting a passage from Homer’s Iliad. I recognized it immediately. An enraged Achilles has slain the Trojan warrior Hector and kept the body, preventing its interment. Hector’s father Priam (the king of Troy) has come to beg for its return. Tayler had chosen the moment when Priam, seeking sympathy, asks Achilles to remember the death of his own father, Peleus. Precisely at that line of the poem, Tayler lost his composure—not dramatically so, but more of a bowed head followed by an awkward silence. At that moment, an amazing thing happened. Of all the students in the hall, including me, not a single person so much as moved or made a sound. What’s the cliché? You could hear a pin drop.
My initial reaction: pretty cringy. But as the moment lingered, my thoughts deepened. What had caused Tayler to lose his composure? Perhaps he was thinking how the fated encounter between Achilles and Priam moved the story one step closer to its awful conclusion, the destruction of Troy. Perhaps he was thinking of his own father—I couldn’t know. As I looked around the room, I also wondered what Tayler’s students might be thinking or feeling. Again, I couldn’t possibly know. But as my eyes scanned the silent lecture hall, two thoughts occurred to me. One, despite being two generations younger than Tayler and almost 2,000 years after Homer, these students, who would go on to major in at least a dozen different disciplines, were completely transfixed by the moment. And two, any lingering doubts I may have had about becoming an English teacher were gone forever. Anyway, Tayler recovered and finished the class. I wanted to go again and see more, but I never did. Somehow, the deeply personal moment I had witnessed made me feel like an intruder. I kept hearing stories about Tayler, but I never returned to his class.
When I sat down to write this piece, I intended it to be a tribute to Professor Tayler, a man I never met and only saw for less than an hour. So it is, and well deserved: Tayler was a legend at Columbia, and a recipient of innumerable honors and awards as a teacher. For almost 40 years, he filled classrooms in Hamilton Hall, captivating students with texts from the Western canon. Reading his obituary in 2018, I was struck by the number and poignancy of tributes, students who said that Tayler’s class had completely changed the course of their lives, including the playwright Tony Kushner and the film critic David Demby. However, beyond the tribute to Tayler, I also want to acknowledge what he taught: the great works of literature that offer us untold opportunities for self-discovery and enlightenment. In an age when the humanities struggle to retain a place at the table, it is important to remember, as Tayler well understood, that literature, especially poetry, still holds the key to what Socrates once declared was our most urgent aim—to know oneself. Or as another English teacher named Keating (from Dead Poet’s Society) once said, and I paraphrase: Medicine, law, business, engineering are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love—these are the things we stay alive for. So may there always be master teachers like Professor Edward Tayler to inspire students along the way. And may we always cherish the poetry of Homer, Dickinson, Rilke, and others, transformed by its magic as we seek to better understand ourselves.
To contact the author: Mr. Keating