Interview with Jeff Morgan /Faculty Notes/Past Faculty: Lemuel Potwin/ Alumni News/England’s Impact on a Major/ Schedule of Events

March 2016

Interview with Jeff Morgan (American Comic Poetry)

CWRU: Why does comic poetry make people uncomfortable? If someone says comic poetry to me, I think of something like “jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!” by Eugene Field, a 19th-century author best known for his children’s poetry. Do you think this point of introduction and association with childhood reading contributes to people’s dismissal or devaluing of comic poetry? Is it poets that feel this way or the general public?

Morgan: I find comic poetry makes people comfortable. I hear them laugh. I see their smiling faces. There is a psychological side to a lot of comic poetry that stems from degradation. The superior laugh at the degraded. If one happens to be either the one degraded or in a degraded group, comic poetry can make such a person uncomfortable.

Dismissing or devaluing comic poetry may stem from the holiday it give us from reason. In a practical society, that which devalues reason may have a tough go of it. Individuals may have loved poems in childhood that as an adult they dismiss. In my book I emphasize that comic poetry appeals to our reason if we take the time to analyze it once we’re done laughing.

We’ve probably all found ourselves falling into the abyss while explaining a joke. Comedy is hard. Comic theory is harder. The more, though, that one knows about comic theory, the greater respect that person will have for the sophistication of comedy. There don’t seem to be a lot of people out there who know comic theory. Comic poetry certainly doesn’t get a lot of scholarly attention, which may be why Thomas Lux has repeatedly warned me that my work in this vein will get me fired.

Continue reading this interview here.

Five members of our department have been nominated for the 2016 Carl F. Wittke Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching: David Lucas, Brad Ricca, Jim Sheeler, Robert Spadoni, and Athena Vrettos. This prestigious award is presented each year during Commencement. The nominations themselves, by current undergraduates and recent alums, are an important recognition of teaching excellence.

Faculty of the Past: Lemuel S. Potwin (1871—1906)

Lemuel Stoughton Potwin
b. 11 August 1832, Hartford, East Windsor, Connecticut
d. 9 January 1907, at home at 1621 E.115 St., Cleveland

Lemuel S. Potwin graduated from Yale College in 1854 with a Bachelor of Arts. Potwin attended Yale with Carroll Cutler and they graduated in the same class. Potwin went on to receive his Master of Arts in 1857 from Yale. Potwin and Cutler also tutored together at Yale, Potwin from 1858 to 1860, before both moved to Western Reserve. Cutler would later become Western Reserve University President.

Potwin was Professor of Latin at Western Reserve (Hudson, Ohio) and Adelbert College (Cleveland, Ohio) and concurrently earned his Doctor of Divinity at Yale in 1886. For most of his teaching career, Potwin held joint titles of Latin Professor and Instructor of English Literature (1871-77) and Instructor of English Philology (1877-1892). On June 21, 1892, he was named Western Reserve’s inaugural Chair of English Language and Literature during an Alumni Meeting, Oration, and Memorial Service. In 1906, the Western Reserve Board of Trustees nominated him for a retirement allowance. The Carnegie Foundation approved their nomination and Potwin subsequently retired.

Potwin was a pastor for three years at the Bridgewater Congressional Church (Conn.).  Members of the Church affectionately knew him as “Pottie.” Potwin also took part in the American Tract Society in Boston for six years as a secretary and editor. He was a contributor to the Bibliotheca Sacra and acted as the editor of the The Congressionalist, the leading religious weekly in Boston.

His publications include “An Article” (JBL, 1893 No. 1, Vol. 12); “Shall we adhere to the English method of pronouncing Latin” (The New Englander and Yale Review, 1878); Here and There in the Greek New Testament (Fleming H. Revel, 1898); and Selections from the Editorial Essays of Lemuel S. Potwin (The Burrows Brothers Company, 1907).

Potwin died one year after retirement in 1907. He was married to Julia Hedges Crane and they enjoyed travelling together. Potwin’s great-grandfather and brother both graduated from Yale, in 1751 and 1851 respectively. His older brother Thomas was also a Latin tutor at Yale from 1854-1858. Potwin’s gift of $12,659.08 from his meager earnings was the greatest monetary contribution to the Hatch Library (Western Reserve University’s Library from 1896 to 1943) up to that time. Potwin’s own papers were given to Yale, however.

Entry by Aaron Perine, from records in University Archives, CWRU, and from public documents.
Photo courtesy University Archives, CWRU.

ALUMNI NEWS