R,J.MacSween
In conversation with Patiick Walsh
(Summer 1980)

Walsh.- How did you get to teach at St. F.X.?

MacSween: - I sneaked in when nobody was looking.

Walsh: - I know that.

MacSween: - No, I think Dr. Nicholson [president of St. F.X. in 1948] picked me because of my library. He'd come down to where I was staying and looked at my books, at a time when I was only a young priest. There was a look of envy in his eye. I'm serious. I think he believed that my books should be up at St. F.X., not down in New Waterford, where they were. So, he just figured out some way of getting them up here. He concluded that I had to go along. He used to come into my room, again and again, and walk around looking at my books. Then he told a friend of mine that a man with such a library should be up at St. F.X.

Walsh: - When did you start building a library?

MacSween: - When I was two.

Walsh: - That's awfully young to handle a hammer.

MacSween: - No, I suppose the year I left college. I began to buy books, as many as I could. I got ajob, laboring in Glace Bay. Hard work. I'd go down every payday and wander around the only bookstore, unable to make a choice. Finally, I would make a choke and buy a book. So, by the time I went to the Seminary, a year later, I had a nice collection - that is, nice for my age. When I was in the Seminary, in Halifax, I discovered the Penguin editions downtown. Paperbacks were practically unknown at that time. When the Penguins appeared, I realized I could get a very good library by spending a few dollars every once in a while. That was the beginning.

Walsh: - So you were a priest out in a parish then for a number of years before you came to St. F.X.?

MacSupeen: - Yes, seven years. Two years in Pomquet, and five years in New Waterford. During that time I bought many, many books. I mean, as many as I possibly could buy. The books I bought while I was in the Seminary, of course, were mostly theological or philosophical and, after I was ordained, I got in touch with a very fine book store in New York-The Gotham Book Mart. You and I were there one day, weren't we?

Walsh: - Yes, we were.

MacSween: - By reading their catalogues and magazines that I bought from them, I got in touch with the most important currents of modern literature. By the time I came here to teach, I had a good start on a collection ofmodern avant garde books, really avant garde. And a good collection of magazines of various types. Many of them were oddities that you couldn't pick up anywhere. IfI had known enough at the time, I would have bought many more, because these go out of circulation very quickly. They're worth a fortune, now. Anyway, that was a good start.

Walsh: - You were facing quite a change, coming from a parish, and being thrown into the academic life here. When you arrived on carnpus, what was it like teaching?

MacSween: - I wasn't prepared at all. The administrators thought I was prepared because I had read a great deal. But I hadn't read many of the things that came into the curriculum. A great deal of the work was new to me. First ofall, the teaching ofgrammar was new. Also, that first year I taught what is now English 350 [Modern British and American Poetry and Short Story]. Many of the things I had to teach, I hadn't seen before. I had read many important works that were not in the textbooks. So, I had to work very hard the first years I was here; the first two or three years, I guess. Once I learned grammar, the rest was easy.

Walsh: - You got on-the-job training?

MacSween: - Sink or swim!

Walsh: - What kind of teaching load did you carry then?

MacSuieen: - Well, at that time the average load was four courses, one of them being religion. The problem wasn't that there were so many courses but that we were too busy prefecting. We went to bed late every night. We couldn't go to bed until everyone else was quiet. 'Me old strict regime was still in force in regard to prefecting. And we got up early in the morning. We priests all got up at six o'clock and said Mass at seven. And then we didn't get to bed until twelve or so, so I was always tired, terribly tired. Also, Dr. Nicholson kept me busy with various jobs which prevented me from doing more reading and preparation. It wasn't his fault; he was that kind of man, but it didn't give me much time. But about three years later, I found everything rather easy.

After a while the prefecting ceased to be so strict. To some extent, through my own efforts and those of a few other young prefects, we got rid of the old discipline that wasjust killing everybody. The need for change, of course, was in the air. Everybody knew it. At that time the veterans were on the campus, older men who didn't want to take any kind of discipline, for which I don't blame them now. But even those who weren't veterans were already infected with the modern idea of liberty in all things. So, we had to relax the discipline and we did, almost completely, except for that matter of open housing. The discipline became very relaxed. When I spoke to Dr. Nicholson and Fr. MacDonnell [then Dean of Men] they agreed that things should be relaxed but that nobody was doing anything about it. They needed a push and I've always been a very good pusher. The Mounties are going to arrest me for pushing!

Walsh: What year did you arrive on campus?

MacSween: - 1948.

Walsh: - What changes do you see since 1948? First of all, in English the teaching of English, and then maybe in regard to the campus life?

MacSween: I don't see many changes. It seems to me there h ' as been a very gradual increase in everything, as far as quantity is concerned. But I don't really see much change in quality. There are some people who claim there is a very great change in quality. But I can't see it.

Walsh: - You mean quality of students?

MacSween. Yes - and the quality of professorial staff. The quality of the actual teaching. I don't see any improvement. In our own department for example, Fr. Bannon was teaching the important courses and he taught them very well. Fr. Kane, also, was here when I arrived. In his own field of grammar he was supreme. We'll never have another grammarian to equal him. And that's about it.

Walsh: - Could you explain why grammar isn't taught at the university anymore?

MacSween: - Well, we found this matter of grammar impossible to control. We felt it should be taught in the early grades and that it was too late to change the habits of a lifetime at college age. We felt that grammar should be taught in grammar school (after all, it's called "grammar school") - and in high school. In dealing with students, we wanted to do a little polishing, but found that the fundamentals were not known. There are a number of other reasons, too. We discovered that most of the students who had to take grammar did not finish their degree. They droppedby the wayside. So, we were placinga tremendous burden upon people who did not finish. We were teaching grammar to the lowest third of those who wrote the English Usage Test, and that lowest third, for the most part, did not graduate. And, we were missing the two-thirds who continued to work for a degree. We felt that such an effort to teach grammar was just a waste of time. So, we dropped it.

Walsh: - But do the students today have to cover more material than they did in those days? I mean, the range of material or the depth of material?

MacSween: - They have to do more writing at the present time. The number of term papers demanded is quite large.

Walsh: - You don't see any great difference in the students of the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s?

MacSween: - No, I don't. They seem the same to me. Today they are more free in their way of life, but as students, they seemjust the same. Their life on the campus, of course, is much freer than when I came here.

Walsh: - What changes in university life did you see from 1948 through the '50s, '60s and '70s?

MacSween: - I can't say much about that, but it seems to me that a good many of the faculty are cut off from the life on the campus. You know, when I came here the faculty was rather small, and for the most part, made up of priests. We discussed everything, we went to everything, we saw all the shows, all the games and so on. 'Me students knew us. But now, you could go right through the year and hardly know what extra-curricular work is carried on, on campus. You might not see a movie, you might not see a play, you might not see a game; whereas thirty years ago that was unthinkable - you attended everything. So there is a rift between the faculty and the students which wasn't there before.

Walsh: - Is that ust a function of size? There were about 600 students when you arrived to teach.

MacSween: - Around that, yes.

Walsh: And now there are four times as many.

Walsh: - Your life has been related to books and magazines and so on. You served on the Library Committee in the early days and saw it grow from a small library to the one we have now. What can you tell us about that experience?

MacSween: - Of course, I was very much interested in the library, and interested in every book that came in. Often when the packages containing books came in, I'd examine every book. I think, the majority of those books were ordered by myself. For years, I think, I ordered, I would say, about 90% of all the books. And at that time, too, you could order in any field you wanted. After a while, I was constricted to ordering only in English. But I ordered everything in the early days and the orders got through. So, hardly a week went by when I wasn't presenting something to the librarian. I marked countless catalogues and brought them over to the library. I think I spent many a weekend marking catalogues every hour. I'd go through 50 catalogues at a time. Or I would compile lists from catalogues or from magazines, copying down titles reviewed there. This work went on for quite a while and I still continue it to some extent. But I haven't got the freedom ofordering for other departments. I used to order everything - even economics sometimes, if the book was a classic. I did the same for music, art, history, psychology, philosophy. There were other little areas of leaming that were not very well marked out, and I ordered for them, too. At the same time, I was buying as many books as I could for myself. Most of the money I ever made went into books.

Walsh: - You are a full professor and you reached the highest rank without getting a formal Ph.D. and you have been something of a rebel. Can you say something about that?

MacSween: - Well, notverymuch. I don'tconsider myselfareal rebel, but I didn't want to go to graduate school and I got away with it. Nowadays I wouldn't get away with it. Ijust came at the time that it was possible to avoid the drudgery. I think what happened was they probably intended to ship me out to a parish. But I was teaching four courses and doing it passibly well, I guess, and was indispensable. So, rather than send me out, they delayed. I was here for so long that I became a fixture. On my 25th anniversary as a priest, they made me a full professor. But I wouldn't have become a full professor if it had meant an increase in salary. All priests on campus get the same salary. Making me a professor caused no great upset. They gave it to me as an honor at the time; it was not a financial matter at all.

Walsh: - Still, it's an honor. Do you know how many full professors there are here?

MacSween: - About 13! I like that number!

Walsh: - Actually, 17 out of 179, which means it is a pretty exclusive honor.

MacSween: - Well, I guess it is an honor. I'll agree with you rather than argue. That doesn't cost anything.

Walsh: - Why didn't you want to go away to graduate school?

MacSueen: - Well, I'm a very private sort of person. I don't believe in going anywhere I don't have to go. And I felt an element of coercion which roused my stubbornness. Ifigured,"Ijustwon'tgo."They could have ordered me to go but they didn't. Dr. Nicholson told me to go and I told him I didn't want to go. Then I think he washed his hands of the whole affair, and he must have decided, "The first chance I get, I'll get rid of him." But the chance didn't come, so Ijust stayed here. I don't think I had missed anything by not going to graduate school. It's different in the sciences or any course that requires a great deal of training. But in the matter of English Literature, I don't feel that you need a Ph.D. at all. I think there is almost nothing in English that you can't learn by yourself It may be good to have a well-trained professor give you a few courses, but I don't think you have to go through that drudgery so long as you like to work by yourself. And I like to.

Walsh: Well, what kind of work do you see an English professor doing? What do you think his responsibilities are?

MacSween: - Well, first of all, I think he should try to make his subject loved by the students. He can't be dull, and he can't have views on life in general that do not elevate the life of the student, do not increase his spiritual vil-dity. In every aspect of life his views must inspire and incline towards spiritual freedom. And if he hasn't got these, it makes no difference what his learning may be because he will be a failure as a professor. The actual matter of what is taught in the classroom is no mystery. It can be assimilated by any energetic person. This is dangerous ground, of course, anyway, the teacher needs broadness of vision, a vision that to some degree resembles the visions of the great writers he d eals with. He can't go into the classroom and talk like a dolt about writers who aren't and weren't dolts. He can't teach like a reactionary about writers who are always forward-looking, and he can't teach with cruelty in dealing with writers who always taught kindness, generosity, and so on. So, it's a big order, but most of that order is not concerned with literature alone.

Walsh: - You have done some writing yourself. Have you been writing throughout your career?

MacSween: - Yes, to some extent. When I first came here I was too busy to write. I think that 15 years went by before I had a chance to begin to write again. Even then, I found it very hard to produce anything of length because there was never time. There was time, it is true, but it wasn't time when I was at my best. Often I couldn't write because I was tired, or mixed up, or had something on my mind. But those moments of peace and clarity that you need for the creation of good writing - I didn't have them too often, living in noisy buildings and teaching crowded courses. But in the last 14 years, I've had more time. For example, we used to teach summer school every year in the early days and we got very little for it, but it did absorb our time and energy. It takes quite a big chunk out of a summer. When a work of some size is contemplated, something that requires long constant writing, a single month or two months is not enough. But, of course, as time went by I got more skilled and faster; I think I could write a great deal now if I felt so inclined. It's a craft, and I didn't really learn how to write until I was 57 or 58. I started to write seriously when I was about 50. Before that it wasjust little scraps of prose, or the occasional poem. But at 50 I began to write more seriously, and produced quite a few things. I was learning all the time; at about 57 I began to know something about writing. I believe nobody really enters that magic field of literature until he produces three or four books.

Walsh: So, you have to practice and make quite a few mistakes before you learn how to do it correctly.

MacSween: - Yes, you have to practice in writing, as you do in everything. In sports, for example. Moreover, I think when you write you teach much better. You understand things from the inside. A teacher can be very valuable in transferring knowledge to students, but I don't believe he'll ever know what a poem is until he's written one; and it's the same for short stories or novels or almost anything else. Every professor should go through a period when he writes for himself, just in order to know, not to sell or make money, but to know what he is talking about.

Walsh: - So, if there are a lot of things that don't get published, at least you've gone through the process and learned from it.

MacSween: - Yes, the writer learns a great deal from simply writing. Not a bit of it is ever wasted. The danger lies in writing "academic" things; most of these are stultifying and must be avoided if possible. Then the writer must have good models. Some critics write beautiful essays; such men are very few but these constitute our models for that type of work. If a person is going to model himself on anybody, he mustn't model himself on the general run of academic critic - because if he does, he'll never develop. All he'll know at the end is how to write a poor essay. He should know that without trying very hard.

Walsh: - You have published several books of poetry; the poems are very often concerned with death. Why is that?

MacSween: - Well, I think death is a great and te@ng thing. If you don't realize that, you're not alive. We're all heading towards death as fast as we can go. And it doesn't take away any of our love of life. If anything, it intensifies it. Even if you do enjoy life a great deal, the enjoyment doesn't, in any way, take away the power of death. But, I think, an amateur poet, as I am (I was even more the amateur in the early days) only writes when he is moved by something unusual - and he's generally moved by death, the death of somebody else, or the sickness ofsomeone else, or disappointment, or a feeling ofdepression in his own life. So, if he writes in that way, he'll end up with a collection of poems with the emphasis heavily slanted towards depressing things like death. But if he is a professional poet and writes about everything in sight, I think that poems on death will bejust a comparatively small portion of his output.

Walsh: - You mean the theme of death fits with the limited amount of time you had to write?

MacSween: - Yes. A professional poet writes poetry very often, perhaps every week. He may not publish it and he may destroy it, but he's writing a great deal, and he writes on every subject. He could write on death only occasionally - if at all. So, at the end of the year the professional may produce 30 poems; perhaps only one or two would be about death. The rest wouldn't be, and as the years went up, fewer and fewer would be, because he would have worked out the subject. But the amateur would only write when extremely moved. He may write only five poems in a year and perhaps three of them would be about death, a high proportion of his work. He only writes when he's moved by personal disaster, like news that abrother or cousin has died or someone has gone permanently away, someone he'll never see again. Every separation is a kind of death. But, I think, everybody thinks about death a great deal but only the poet writes about it. His next door neighbour, who perhaps never wrote a laundry list, thinks about death just as much as the poet does.

Walsh: - I'd like to ask you about an activity at the University that took up a great deal of your time and energy. You've been chaplain at Mount St. Bernard for a long time.

MacSween: Well, I still am in a way, but in the early days I was wanted over there as a sort of guidance counsellor. In fact, the first year I was there I refused to be that and was almost dropped because I did no counselling. So, after a while I gave in and saw anybody who wanted to, see me. By using my knowledge of graphology, I had a kind of key to character. For about twenty years, I went over every evening after supper, and would stay there for as long as anybody wanted to see me. Now, I have stopped that for a number of reasons; I was getting old and finding myself strapped for time. The establishment of a guidance center on the campus took away the great need for my presence. There may be other minor reasons, but these were the two principal ones why Ijust stopped going. I began to get impatient with sitting in an office in the evening, getting tired and bored with it all.

Walsh: - You had a period as chair of the English department. How would you assess that period in your career?

MacSween: - Well, it meant a little more work, I suppose, although I didn't notice it because I've always been inclined to avoid simple administration. I did not feel it necessary to lay down many rules and regulations, only the very, very essential ones. Then, Mr. Pat Walsh (Do you know him?) used to do a lot of the bull work for me. The setting up of schedules and so on. There wasn't much extra work except at the beginning of the year during registration - where Pat Walsh and I helped register students. My ambition, when I was chair, was to bring into the department people who longed to write, and I thought that if we could get, say, seven or eight who were oriented that way, we would have a good nucleus for the magazine which I intended to start later on. And so, for that reason, I was anxious to hire men like Pat Walsh, Sheldon Currie, James Taylor, Kevin O'Brien, and perhaps a few others. That was my main object in being head of the department - to see if I could influence the hiring in that direction.

Walsh: - What about the magazine now: The Antigonish Review.

MacSween: - Well, I had the notion from the time I came here; I was very interested in these little magazines, many received through the Gotham Book Mart and through seeing them advertised in magazines. I had begun to collect many of them early in my career. It seemed to me that this was about the only way we could break into what you'd call the world of culture. In this region we haven't the wealth or the population to break into that world. But we could start a little magazine with a small outlayofcash, and everybodyknows how towrite-notwritewell - but everybody knows how to write, and with a little bit of finesse we could get a group here who thought as I did. It wasn't a question of achieving fame - but of producing a good magazine. When I was very busy, in the first part of my career here, I knew it couldn't be undertaken, but later on things began to look up. I knew that the Canada Council would help after two years of our publishing, if they approved of our work, but it was up to us to produce eight issues that would be of a high quality. And so, we made a move. I forget the year.

Walsh: - The year we started was 1969-70.

MacSween: - So, I went to see Father MacDonell, who was Dean, and he approved and told me he'd give me support. Then, I went to see Msgr. MacI-xllan, who was president, and he told me he had to bring it up before the Council, which was the governing body at that time. I appeared before the Council and gave them my case, and they approved, too. That must have been the spring of '69. And then we started it in'70. At that time, we hired Fr. Brocard Sewell. He had been editor of a magazine in England - The Aylesford Review - and later on we made him editor. I actually appointed him myself. I put him in charge of everything. I felt it was mean not to do so, since he had experience as an editor already. But I think I made a mistake because it cut me off from the rest of the editors. I was on the editorial board, but it cut me off from the old group, like yourself, Pat, Sheldon Currie, and George and Gert Sanderson, who had been in at the beginning.

Walsh: - The idea is to give new writers a chance?

MacSween: - Yes, although it is open to the general public, to those who want to write, but the real hope is that we'll get more and more from Nova Scotia. We'll never make itjust a Nova Scotiajournal; it will be international, if possible. But we hope it will affect those of a literary bent in our area. It already has to some extent, but not so much as we'd hoped for. Well, the fact that, in this last issue, we published two students whom I taught here,john Rogers and Richard Marchand, is indeed very encouraging. One has a short story and the other has two poems. And it seems to me they are of high quality. Now, those two boys could be famous someday. Without the magazine, I don't think they would even have tried. And there are others, too. And, if we could get one or two like that, say, every five years or so ....

Walsh: - Who would you say are the major people the magazine has introduced so far?

MacSween: - Well, we haven't introduced any great writers. I think that's certain.

Walsh: Any good writers, or writers who have achieved some degree of success outside the local community?

MacSween: - I really don't know those who achieved great success. Because in most cases, those who write for little magazines don't become famous. Yet almost every important writer started away in little magazines. But, there are a few. Those who seem to shine are @la egyedi, who's a Hungarian d.p., and Peter Van Toorn who, it seems to me, is certainly headed for greatness, if he continues. We published him first and then we published most of the stuff he produced after that. So, there must have been something - we were open-minded enough to recognize the talent of these people. They're both very grateful that we gave them a chance but neither one of these men is famous. They could be someday. And there are all kinds of others who are fairly well known. A fellow named Ralph Valgardson, whom we printed a few years ago, put out a collection of short stories last year. And a few others are on die way, and have produced books after we published them. I haven't a very complete list of them. If any of these becomes well known, it would be to some extent because we paid special attention to them, but I don't think there are many. To get the very best writers in Canada, or better, in the English-speaking world, we'd have to be in a position to pay all our contributors in cash or else at least be in a large center like Toronto. Personally, I'm not very arodous to get the writers that are considered important. Say, the best ten writers in Canada or the best fifty in the States - I'm not anxious to get those people at all.

Walsh: - Well, they're going to be published elsewhere anyway, so you want to give other people a chance to develop?

MacSweem: - Yes, that's right. Those people crowd out die lesser-known writers, they write a grat deal and they dominate in a few of our magazines. You'll see them all the time in the Tamarack Review, and when they're in, they are well represented. They might have ten poems in one issue. I'd rather give five people two poems.

Walsh: You see the responsibility of running the magazine as something which looks very much to the future.

MacSween: I suppose there are two goals. The immediate one is to get out the magazine, to pick the best writing we can get. ne other one is a kind of hope that some budding writer gets a good start.

Walsh: - Over your career here at St. F.X, what has given you the most satisfaction?

MacSween: - The most satisfaction is teaching. I don't know if anybody realizes how much fun I get out of a class. In fact, it's the nearest thing to a Charlie Chaplin show. We do so much laughing that - well, I'll give you an example. I walked into the last class one year, it must be ten years ago now-andi saw astudentin thebackrowwhom I hadn'tseen before. I thought he had been skipping class all year and had come to the very last one, so I told him to get out. He went out. He waited for me after class and he said, "I'm not in your class at all, but I was in the class next door and all year long we were listening to this class laughing, so I decided I'd come in to find out what it was all about, and you kicked me out.' That was Professor seph; he now teaches at the College of Cape Breton.

Walsh: - Oh, Brianjoseph, yes.

MacSween:

Walsh: Yes, 112 people, I remember.

MacSween: - But I would say that for the last 15 years the classes have been great fun for me. I enjoy them. It's as if I were taking a holiday. And I- think I teach much better than I ever did and I get a great deal of work done at the same time. Yet, I've learned in the course of the years to develop an atmosphere of humor in the classes. So that's w I get my real fun - in the classroom. And very rarely do I get a class that's dull or that I feel is dull.

Walsh: - What do you expect out of a class?.What do you want them to get out of the literature?

MacSween: - First of all, I expect them to be pleased with what we're doing. No, I expect them to be wide awake, and that's the purpose of the fun. And I mustn't exaggerate this. It's all spontaneous, spur-of-themoment stuff. It keeps them alive. But then as for the literature and its effect upon them, first of all, I try to make them see thejoy of it all, that there is a pleasure in doing a poem, but not pleasure that gives a laugh, but a kind of passive enjoyment in seeing something well done. The same pleasure you get from watching a horse gallop or a deer go across a pasture. They are both fine works, well-organized works. The poem is well-organized too, it's beautifully put together, and there's an aesthetic enjoyment in the reading of it. As for the subject matter of the poems and the stories; it should always be something that hits you vitally. It should touch life; it should teach life. You should always have to stop and say, "My God, that's true." And so as long as you get the aesthetic pleasure from it, plus the idea that these things are not toys but pointers to thoughts and emotions, to the vital areas of life, then you've got it. The two must go together. The importance of these things is most obvious in the stories. Almost every short story we do is concerned with something dreadfully important. The writer interprets his age, as if he were a sounding board for his age, he vibrates with that age. He produces the short story to interpret some aspect of that age for his readers. And in story after story, this can be seen. In poems, too, but poems are much more difficult, much more subtle in their presentation, and in expression of their ideas. But ifyou stop and think for a while, you'll find poems doing the very same thing as stories: interpreting the alre for the reader. Not that the writer is sitting down and saying, "I'm going to interpret this age,"buthe'll say, "I'm appalled by this war," and he'll sit down and write his impression of the war, and a hundred years later you read it and you say, "My Godl Isn't that truel For that age, for every age." Or a writer feels terribly sad because he's lonely and he doesn't say, "I am going to interpret my age," but, "This loneliness must be expressed; I feel that it must express itself" So he writes about his loneliness. A hundred years later somebody reads it and says, 'Ohl he was like mel' The reader looks back and sees this person, in the early 19th century, being lonely in the middle of a different kind of world. It's like a message sent from a hundred years ago, telling us how human we all are. So, all these works, literary works, are pleasing in their order and arrangement, they're pleasing in the message they give us and they are pleasing in the way they interpret the world. Do you see that?

Walsh: - Yes, I believe it, too.

MacSween: - The students are most taken up by what the writer is telling, and almost always it's something that intrigues them. Because the writers being greater men, men ofgreat intellect, they don't waste their time on matters of no importance. They hit home hard; the student must see that this man is writing about something of dreadful importance to him and to everybody. Often it's in the short stories that they get the sense of universality most easily, because they are more available to the young mind. Poems have to be interpreted and I interpret all the poems as well as I can. Students can give their own interpretation if they want, provided they give mine, too. They don't ask me about that now, but years ago they used to ask, "Why can't I interpret this in my own way?" and I'd say, "You certainly can. Also you can put your interpretation down in the examinations, but then you must put down mine. You're not here to just indulge yourselves without discipline. You'll get my outlook on things first, and then you can have your own. When you're through here, you can throw out all my interpretations and hang on to your own. But if you want to pass, you'll remember mine while in this class."

Walsh: - Also, you've spent your life studying these things and practising the writing and doing this reading and, therefore, I suppose, you speak from the point of view of experience. They should know that as a starting point.

MacSween: - It wouldn't hurt them to know that. But, sometimes they add a bit to my own explanation. They do have insights that I miss. Every year, you learn a little bit more about something because a student speaks up. In a class of fifty, you're liable to have five or more, say fifteen, who will add something to your interpretation and in the course of ten years your own ideas are very much enriched. But they individually couldn't do a very good job.

Walsh: - Who are your favorites of all the poets or fiction writers you've taught about?

MacSween: - Well, at this stage of the game, Ezra Pound is my favourite poet. He was a difficult man. He was very often wrong. But nobody has given literature such dedication as he gave it. From his early youth on until he died, he was simply swimming in literary matters. It was his whole life and he regarded literature as being of supreme importance. He gave it everything he possessed. The result is you could make an anthology of pieces from Ezra Pound's work, which would loudly proclaim him a great poet. He's so difficult and at the same time so interesting, you could spend your whole life on him and not exhaust the subject at all. With other writers a half a year on them is enough. They surrender all that they have to give. But with Pound fifty years is not enough time to exhaust his riches. Now, he's the one that interests me most. His life is interesting. He's written a great deal. It's hard to be finished with such an . ng man. And I like Eliot, too. He was a very great poet, a man who always said the important thing and in this matter he surpasses Pound. There is a heaviness, a gravity, about everything he wrote that brands him a man who thinks deeply about everything. But Pound didn't have that ability. Eliot surpasses him there; his words have an impressive gravity, as if he were quoting the Bible. Pound is much more difficult, much more various, in the work he produced, and much more far-reaching in his cultural allusions. His work is like a heavy thick broth. You bump into medieaval troubadours, Chinese philosophers, anthropologists, the Greek and Roman classics, the mediaeval classical ohl almost everything. The richness of Pound's learning is just amazing. He opens all kinds of avenues. And if you study him, you get interested in Chinese literature, for example, and Japanese literature, and you get interested in anthropology, you get interested in the history of money, and banking, in the mediaeval bankers, in the provençal troubadours, the works of Dante, Homer, Catullus, François Villon. The list is endless. And then he produced music. He wrote a number of musical works that are considered to be very good, and are just coming into their own. You never finish studying Pound. Now that wouldn't be enough, except that every once in a while you come across a poem or a piece of a poem that is so beautiful that you adore it. He's my main interest.

I enjoy many prose writers. But the one who gives me the most Pleasure is Evelyn Waugh. I like him much more than other writers who are considered greater, likejamesjoyce or D.H. Lawrence. I enjoy Waugh more; I read him for fun. But I don't read the others for fun; I read them for work. I may enjoy a piece now and then, but every bit of Waugh is ajoy, every letter, every essay, every story, every bit of his diaries. And his letters are coming out soon, I hope. There is nothing about Waugh that I don't enjoy and that's because he's a supreme artist. He couldn't write a short note without its being an artistic triumph. He did it, I believe, without thinking. I read a few years ago a selection ofhis letters, mostof them short notes, making arrangements for dinner, for example, every one of them a masterpiece. And there is a greatjoy in reading a person who has no failures at all.

But I read everything; I can't even remember at the moment whom else I enjoy. I enjoy him - always - and I can read him over and over again.

I enjoy Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge. Also Graham Greene and William Trevor. Most of the novelists I like are English. Among Americans, the one I enjoy most is Walker Percy. He's an important writer because his thought has deep, cultured roots. As far as thinking is concerned, he is above Waugh, but he's not the artist that Waugh is. Yet, he's a very good writer and he writes clear, simple prose, very much like EnLylish wxitinly. But very few Americans have the ability to produce novels that are works of art. They write good books, and very often enormous ones, but, so far, they haven't the artistic polish of the English. They will get it some day. My real pleasure is in reading English novels and American poets. Those two great poets of the century, Pound and Eliot, are American and many of the minor ones are American also: Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, and some more I can't think of. They are American. They dominate modern poetry. They dominate fiction too, but they haven't the artistic instinct for the novel, so far. It's hard to name more names, there are so many. The table is always spread for us. There are the gross along with the delicate; the fine and the refined; the cultivators of the earth and the searchers of the heavens.

The Antigonish Review is a quarterly literary journal published by St. Francis Xavier University. The Review features poetry, fiction, reviews and critical articles from all parts of Canada, the US and overseas, using original graphics to enliven the format.

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