Splendor of Heart: Walter Jackson Bate and the Teaching of Literature

by Robert D. Richardson Jr.

In The Education of Henry Adams, Adams presciently observed that "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Walter Jackson Bate, the legendary Harvard professor, was far more than a celebrated and decorated biographer; he was an inspired teacher. And books about great teachers are rare. Here Robert Richardson, himself a distinguished teacher and biographer, takes the reader back to the Harvard of the fifties when men like Bate could hold a classroom of undergraduates enthralled by making literature seem "achingly human, and real, and important," a task that involved not only exploring the work but the authors themselves their lives, their hopes and their failures. Above all, Bate instilled in his students the heterodox notion that learning itself means nothing unless it leads to action, that simply understanding the text is a dead end unless the words affect and change behavior.

Genres: Biography

127 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2012

About the author

The son of a Unitarian minister, Robert Dale Richardson III grew up in Massachusetts and earned his bachelor's and doctorate degrees in English at Harvard University. Richardson taught at a number of colleges, including the University of Denver and Wesleyan University.

Reviews

[James Klagge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this in the publisher's catalogue--wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I had never heard of Bate, but I was attracted by the topic. The book is half memoir by a former student/half interview. There was a certain amount of repetition, even within the memoir. Bate taught English Lit at Harvard from the '40's to the '80's. He is definitely old-fashioned, but provided a perspective I appreciated somewhat. He is very much an elitist from an earlier era, in the value of literature for students. While I have qualms about his own views, I have more qualms about many of the ideological or post-modern approaches to Lit more recently in vogue. There was also interesting stuff about writing and teaching as a professor, and about biography. A book I will probably reread.

[Godine Publisher & Black Sparrow Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

What better book is there about the example of one person teaching literature or the humanities at large? I don't know of one, this is it.

It's also a lovely book in production and appearance. I've read many tributes to teachers; this homage is unparalleled, the bibliography of Jack's work an unexpected bonus.
--James Engell, Harvard University

[Seth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some noteworthy sections. Overall, rather repetitive and dry. A good defense of the humanities and worth the read for that.

[Stanley Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what one would consider a formal biography, but still worth the read. I did not know much about Walter Jackson Bate until nearly finished with Richardson’s biography Emerson: Mind on Fire. It is while reading that work that I acquired this book on Bate. Good enlightenment on a excellent teacher, which reminded me of my adviser when I was attending college some 20+ years ago. Bate’s interview by John Paul Russo was just as enlightening. Highly recommended by anyone interested in great literature…SLT