THE COLLEGE NEWS Wednesday, November 20, 1957 THE COLLEGE NEWS FOUNDED IN. 1914 _. Published weekly during the College Year (except during Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter holidays, and during examina- tion weeks) in the inierest of Bryn Mawr College at the Ardmore Printing Company, Ardmore, Pa., and Bryn Mawr College. The College News is fully protected by copyright. “Nothing that appears in it may be reprinted wholly or in part without permission of the Editor-in-Chief. EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief .........ccsccsccceceseecrsceeseeevses Anna Kisselgoff, ‘58 Copy Editor .........ccese cece ccecercceseeeneeeeeees Eleanor Winsor, ‘59 Managing Editor .......-..-sseseceeeeerecetereeeees Gretchen Jessup, ‘58 OTe e eS Eye ee EOE STAN CMTE ERE AE EE, Miriam Beames, ‘59 Make-up Editor . EDITORIAL STAFF Barbara Broome, ‘60; Sue Goodman, ‘60; Tulsa-Kaiser, ‘58; Frederica Koller, ‘61; Gail Lasdon, ‘61; Betsy Levering, ‘61; Lynne Levick, ‘60; Elizabeth Rennolds, 59; Susan Schapiro, ‘60; Judy Stulberg, ‘61; Alex van Wessem, ‘61; Janet Wolf, ‘59; Gail Beckman, ‘59, (Alliance reporter). : Let There Be... ~ Off stage voices: (sepulchral, mysterious, laryngitical) O light! In the beginning was the dark... O light? A movement, as of many softly shuffling sneakers, is heard, and presently On Stage voices: No ink No light No think To-night Too hot To sleep . Two-watt We weep Chorus, full voice: And Besides The Books Are All Stolen Anyway! (The voice of the poets is heard through the land) 1st Poet: a “Do not go gentle into that good night Rage, rage...” 2nd Poet: “AO dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant.” (a murmur of “how unkind,” “oh, now wait” i§ heard, Sneak- ers shuffle as in protest) . “The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark, and dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach’ de Gotha And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors, And cold the sense and lost the motive of action, And we all go with...” 1st pair of Sneakers: (a younger pair) Yes that’s very nice Mr. Eliot, and of course we had always intended to write our long paper on you, but please can’t you tell us why they don’t put the lights on in the library, These nights we can only read you by day. And if it’s raining sometimes not even then, Mr. Eliot... we Chorus: (full sneaker shuffle) Vd We peer \ We squint We near The print The rain The dim The strain No glim! 2nd Poet: (again) “You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance In order to possess what you do not possess” Zu Pair of tennis shoes: o Mr. Eliot... Castle Guide: Please to regard the main reading room, madam It’s modelled on Oxford, old Wadham College’s great hall for dining; quite Ideal for study, especially at night Don’t you think Tourist tripper (female) Think? Oh yes. Indeed I have always inclined To think books the food of the mind Don’t you guess? An aga student minstral: (a monotone who will not be deni The Ballad of Reading Gaol (condensed by Addlemer Mor- timer) This scene we saw, this saw was seen While strolling through the grey Of reading room in la(f)ternoon ' Around 5:30, say; For I never saw a girl “‘who looked So wistfully at the day” _As one bright scholar, who did wear Long shorts and hours grey Away in light unsure, at best, Ie © For the honors gained in May; | ~ “© carpe diem” quoth she sadly ‘ Which means enjoy the day. 2nd Poet (for the last time, softly) : “What is the late November doing...” Sneakers, Tennis shoes: Mr. Eliot, oh Mr. Eliot, do you think you could explain the symbolism, we’re in the dark you know .. . Full Chorus of On Stage Voices: ~ - No ink _No light No think ‘ at hc einem atirieiceeniiaaehl ALERTED? a PEE gory an ee (And Besides The Books Are All Stolen Anyway) o > Tis said brevity is the soul of wit. Alas the professorial contingent did not always subscribe to this view. “Ah,” but you say, “it is not the quantity .. .” “Indeed, no, Miss Jeosophat, but we can not judge you on 25 words or less.” “But sir, these aren’t just any old 25 words. Each is carefully chosen. i: Mv e, Wells" “One day sir, all language will be limited to a meagre hundred words or so. “Indeed?” Then why not write a paper on that topic. You could deal with it quite copiously, I’m sure.” ‘Am What Am by Debby Ham So she went home and wrote a paper, but it didn’t look very long so she rewrote it on her room- mate’s typewriter which had larger type. It. still didn’t look very long so she re-typed it with two spaces between each word and four spaces between each sentence. That took her a long time, and even when she was finished it was still short. She reset her margins and made a thin column down the center of the page, using long words and cross- ing them out. When she got to the end she wrote “end,” and there was much matter and few words. And from that day on, profes- sors never asked for long papers. Last Thursday evening Don Americo Castro spoke in the Com- mon Room to a large group of stu- dents, professors and their families and local residents. Don Americo is considered one of the leading figures of Spanish thought of the 20th century and one of the great professors of literature of our time. His topic was “El Caballero de O1- medo”—a play by Lope de Vega, famous Spanish playwright of the transitional years between the 16th and 17th centuries, Don Americo commented early in his lecture that the play was constructed upon a “cantar popu- lar” of that period, the inspiration of the song, however, having noth- ing to do with the happenings of the play. Lope simply appropriated the song already known and sung among the people and wove the play around it, substituting the death of the play hero, Don Alonso, for the death of one of the local residents for whom the song was originally written. This factor brought out some thoughts of Don Americo on the subject of literary criticism. He felt it was easy to become over-involved in a relation of the work to reality at the time it was written and overlook the value of the work as an artis- tic entity. He definitely felt that \the reader should forget for a mo- ment why this song was originally written and whether or not the heroines of the play were meant to represent various lovers of the author. Instead the reader must enter into and participate emotion- ally in the play itself in order to understand and appreciate it fully. The element of fate was men- tioned by Don Americo as funda- mental to the play. Dona Ines and Don Alonso were fated by the stars to love, and he to die. As in all epochs, the drama makes use of the clash between the life of the and his adverse destiny as directed from above. Lope does not com- ment on the good or bad of this adverse destiny, he merely presents it—“que de noche le mataron!” Lope presents the two towns of Medina and Olmedo as symbols re- spectively of life and death. The constant goings and comings of Don Alonso between Olmedo and Medina—between life and th— show that he is both a living per- time. He continually speaks to us from a world of fantasy and dreams. How is it possible that he ‘ean be alive and dead at the same time? “Only in art,” said Don Americo, One must perceive this paradox emotionally, not rationally. In contrast to the world of death from which Don Alonso speaks to us ig the crude realistic world of Fabia—iLope’s presentation of the 15th century’s Celestina. This huge brought into a synthesis and har- monized in the person of Dona s from con- character as directed by himself] | son and a dead person at the same | Tale of Two Cities! scope presented by the author is|' Reading of “El Caballero de Olmedo” Follows Don Americo Castro’s Lecture love ‘with Don Alonso in his very world of fantasy and dreams. Don Americo mentioned also that never before had such originality ap- peared in Spanish drama and at- tributed it to the genius of Lope de Vega. The lecture was followed -by a reading of fragments of the play and the “romance” sung and play- ed by students from the Graduate Center. : : Badminton Last chance! Try out for the bad- minton varsity Thursday night, 7:30-10:00 p.m. Everyone welcome: you need not be a champion. A wonderful game, congenial com- pany, and a long time period to suit your taste. Come anywhere between those hours. Self-Gov Initiates . Meetings in Halls by Nancy Dyer On the night of November 4, the Self-Government Advisory Board held an open board meeting in the Rockefeller Hall showcase. This is the first time that Self-Gov. has. held an open meeting in any hall; it represents one of the chief aims of the Board this year, which is to involve as many people as possible in the mechanics of its administra- tion, The Board feels that the experi- ence of sitting in and contributing to a discussion of objective Self- Gov. problems can be exceptionally valuable to the individual member.. One reason for this is that she: will be dealing with situations in which she herself is not directly concerned. In Advisory Board meetings the Hall president pre- sents an anonymous case:and it is up to the Board and any visitors to examine the given situation and, to arrive at a decision on the basis of the rules and policy of the As- sociation. Unfortunately too many people have never thought beyond defin- ing their own position to a book of rules and have consequently missed - a conception of the system as a ‘whole; fo miss this is to miss a ‘very important aspect of life at. (Bryn Mawr. : Omen hall meetings are ar effort. on the part of the Board to bring _ | Self-Government as directly as ‘possible to the college. It is up to the college to decide whether our system of Self-Government is ef- fective, and if not, what changes ‘should be made. We feel this year ‘individual evaluation larly scheduled opportunity for revising is particu- important because of the the constitution next semester, TYPEWRITERS Sold — Rented — Repaired All Makes Suburban Typewriter Co. 39 E. Lancaster Ave. Ardmore MI 2-1378 Handkerchiefs Embroidered Linens Trousseaux . Bath Ensembles Monograms Irish Damasks WILSON BROS. MAGASIN de LINGE 825 Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 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