The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 3, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 7, 2016 Page: 7 of 10
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Arts & Culture
The University News
September 7, 2016
7
In praise Of UD English professor’s close
halves
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Calling all professors'
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our trusted professors wanted.
or contributions, email Sara Coello at scoello@udallas.edu.
trusted professors to
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1-700 words
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The University News is seeking input from our 1
provide a unique insight into current events at the university, i
your fields of study. Opinion pieces should range from 600
id will be published in the Commentary section of The University News.
unusual the-
experience.
fall
an
atrical
This fall catch
Matt Sklar, Tim Her-
lihy and Chad Beg-
uelin’s hilarious mu-
sical “The Wedding
Singer,” based on the
1998 film of the same
name, from Sept. 22-
Oct. 16, as well as
the world premiere of
Bruce R. Coleman’s
new play “Day Light”
from Nov. 17-Dec. 11.
3. Lyric Stage,
Irving
Founded by Ste-
phen Jones, Lyric
Stage in Irving has de-
mieres.
This fall, you can
catch the regional pre-
miere of “Ring of Fire:
the Music of Johnny
Cash.” Created by
Richard Maltby Jr. and
William Meade, “Ring
of Fire” utilizes Cash’s
iconic songbook to ex-
plore love, faith, suc-
cess and struggle. It
runs Oct. 7-30.
5. Casa Mana-
na, Fort Worth
A visit to this his-
toric theater is well
worth the trek to Ft.
Worth. In 1936, Dallas
was selected as the site
of the Texas Centen-
nial.
Meanwhile, Amon
Heaney advised
him against this kind
of early-career com-
placency.
In addition to help-
ing Osborn publish his
first poem, “Helian-
thus,” in “Erato,” now
the “Harvard Review”
in 1990, Heaney in-
troduced Osborn to a
number of significant
poets.
“I used to hang out
in the Woodberry Po-
etry Room at Harvard, Heaney also served
and I’m sitting here,
skateboard in tow, and
[Heaney] comes in
with Ted Hughes, one
of his best friends, and
introduces me to him,”
Osborn said.
Another of He-
aney’s important con-
tributions to Osborn’s
career was writing him
letters of recommen-
dation for his appli-
cation to the M.EA.
program at the Iowa Blumenthal], but I
Writers’ Workshop,
the most prestigious in
the country.
ter of recommenda-
tion from someone
about to win
bel, it certainly can’t
hurt,” Osborn said.
Plato references
a Greek myth which
claims that human
beings were origi-
nally twice what we
observe now, and
that the division of
persons came about
when Zeus split
them all in two. The
life experience of
every person, there-
fore, is dominated
by the search for the
missing half, and
consequently domi-
nated by the very
idea of the half. Ar-
istotle also embraces
the half in his rule
of the golden mean.
That mean is not the
perfect arithmetic
mean between two
extremes, but rather
the proper halfway
point between. That
half is illuminated
by good judgment,
not simple calcula-
tion.
The half domi-
nates human action
as well. Any English
major will tell you
that a good epic be-
gins in medias res:
halfway through the
events in question.
The half marks the
heat of action, the
most gripping and
mesmerizing time
to capture an audi-
ence’s interest and
make them feel the
richness of the tale.
Depth is revealed at
the half. The “Ae-
think he was more in-
sightful,” Osborn said,
looking over a copy of
If you have a let- Heaney’s evaluation
of his thesis.
Osborn and He-
the No- aney met one last time
at a reading the latter
gave at the American
All the same, the Academy in Rome.
poetic influences Os- “It was one of his
born encountered at last public readings,”
Iowa were “diametri- Osborn said. “He
cally opposed,” to the didn’t know he was
poetics of Heaney, he going to die ... the
said—that is, much
less formal and much
more avant-garde.
“I was trying to
a 1 f
mea-
sures
and
half-heartedness are
generally consid-
ered bad things, and
rightly so.
It’s a shame,
however, that these
expressions have
created a bad repu-
tation for the idea of
a half. Even the pos-
itive expression “a
glass half-full” tends
to repress the more
negative expression
“a glass half-empty,”
instead of standing
for positivity in its
own right. I for one
wish to rescue the
half, and to that end
I devote a full mea-
sure of my capacity
and the full length
of this column.
4. Water Tower
Theatre, Addison
Founded in 1996,
Water Tower Theatre
is in its 20th year of
providing quality the-
atre to the Dallas com-
munity.
Striving to reach
people through the
unique magic of live
theatre, Water Tower
is dedicated to offering
diverse seasons includ-
ing classic plays and
musicals and often fea-
turing new contempo-
rary work by up-and-
coming artists.
Water Tower has
produced five world
premieres and over a
dozen regional pre-
straddle this huge
chasm between He-
aney and [my main
professor], Jorie Gra-
ham,” Osborn said.
“It was hard, but I
wouldn’t have it any
other way. It keeps me
from being a Heaney
poet or a Graham
poet, while attracting
me to the sensibilities
of both.”
Besides being one
of Osborn’s professors,
as
one of the readers of
his undergraduate the-
sis, written under the
direction of relative
newcomer poet Lucie
Brock-Broido.
“[Heaney] was
kind of away when I
would have wanted to
work with him,” Os-
born said.
“He gave me a
lower grade than the
other guy [Michael
veloped a reputation
for producing incred-
ible musicals.
New life is breathed
into classic Broadway
shows in revivals that
prominently feature a
“full” orchestra, a rare
sight these days even
on Broadway.
UD’s own Stefan
Novinski recently di-
rected a dazzling pro-
duction of “The Gold-
en Apple”
acclaim.
This fall, don’t
miss the production of
Lerner & Loewe’s clas-
sic musical adaptation
of the King Arthur
legend “Gamelot,”
running Sept. 9-18.
G. Garter, creator of
the Fort Worth Star-
Telegram, planned
a celebration in Ft.
Worth.
He hired Broad-
way producer Billy
Rose to produce a
“Show of Shows”
which was so success-
ful, it was intended to
return every summer
for the next four years.
Rising costs and
the threat of World
War II, however, even-
tually shut down the
theatre.
In 1958, the City
of Ft. Worth created a
non-profit corporation
to build and operate a
new theatre.
Since then, Gasa
Manana has produced
rich, diverse and en-
tertaining seasons for
the DFW community.
From Sept. 10-18,
you can see Andrew
Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus
Christ Superstar.”
Then, from Nov.
5-13, don’t miss “Mil-
lion Dollar Quartet,”
the jukebox musical
by Floyd Mutrux and
Golin Escott, which
dramatizes the famed
recording session
of Dec. 4 1956 that
brought together musi-
cal giants Elvis Presley,
Jerry Lee Lewis, Garl
Perkins and Johnny
Gash in Memphis.
Photo credit Dr. Andrew Osborn ( " ’ ” ’
Seamus Heaney gives what would be his last public reading at the Osborn said.
American Academy in Rome.
connection to famed poet
Molly Wierman
A&G Editor
Osborn said,
didn’t know he
going
Irish embassy right
next door to the acad-
emy had a party af-
terwards, and I sort
of worked my way
through the crowds to
shake his hand one last
time — well, I didn’t
know it was one last
time.”
Following his
death, Queen’s Uni-
versity in Belfast,
home to the Seamus
Heaney Centre for Po-
etry, held a conference
on Heaney’s work, at-
tended by a group of
UD graduate students
and Osborn himself,
who was nearing the
end of his time teach-
ing in Rome.
“It was just a fan-
tastic commemoration
of his life and work,”
oli ti-
mere: do
not be
afraid.
At first, the above
might sound more
like a quotation from
the Bible than the last
words of a Nobel lau-
reate poet, and indeed
perhaps famed North-
ern Irish poet Seamus
Heaney (1939-2013)
intended the connec-
tion.
Last week marked
the three-year anni-
versary of Heaney’s
death.
During his tenure
at Harvard University
as the Boylston profes-
sor of rhetoric and or-
atory from 1985-1997,
Heaney taught a work-
shop course, taken by
University of Dallas
English professor Dr.
Andrew Osborn, then
a junior.
“The chances were
very much against you
for getting into the
workshop,” Osborn
said. “[Heaney] was
very discriminating.
He didn’t choose you
based on your promise
... but on whether he
could work with you.”
There were nine
other students in the
workshop with Os-
born. Three of these
were undergraduates,
some of whom were
not actually affiliat-
ed with Harvard but
merely lived in Cam-
bridge.
“That was one of
the greatest advantag-
es [of the workshop],”
Osborn said. “You had
these really impressive
people that you actu-
ally wanted to read
your poems.”
The workshop
course met once a
week for three hours,
during which time the
students would receive
critiques from Heaney
and each other.
“He would doo-
dle on our poems,”
Osborn said. “He’d
draw grape clusters
and flowers on mine.”
Since Heaney
was working on his
translation of “Be-
owulf” while teach-
ing the workshop, his
first assignment for the
course was to write a
modern English trans-
lation of the Anglo-
Saxon poem “Dream
of the Rood.”
“I didn’t like it as
an assignment,” Os-
born said. “I didn’t
think I knew how to
do justice to it.”
Osborn said one
of the most important
pieces of advice He-
aney gave him during
the workshop was not
to settle in his poetry.
“I already had an
aesthetic or a sort of
poetics that I was al-
ready loyal to,” Os-
born said.
neid” takes this fur-
ther. Not only does
it begin at a half, in
medias res, but half-
way through the tale
and halfway through
Aeneas’ journey, Ae-
neas’ drive and mo-
tivation are doubled.
The meta viarum
the halfway point
marks a change in
purpose in Aeneas’
soul. The half domi-
nates literature.
Modern ex-
amples reveal the
half as well. Half-
marathons don’t
demonstrate merely
half the stamina
of a full marathon,
but rather twice or
four times as much
stamina as at least
half the popula-
tion could possibly
exhibit. Half Price
Books is a staple for
any college student
seeking cheap nov-
els or records. Car-
bon dating is made
possible because of
the lengthy half-life
of carbon-14. The
halftime at any foot-
ball game occasions
a run for more hot-
wings or a game of
catch in the back-
yard. At the Super
Bowl, halftime be-
comes a whole show
in itself. It is no coin-
cidence, then, that,
with few exceptions,
hockey is much less
popular than foot-
ball; in hockey there
is no respect for the
half.
Why is it that the
half is so important?
The signifiance lies
in the proximity.
At least temporally
speaking, the half is
sufficiently close to
the beginning that it
is remembered viv-
idly, and sufficiently
close to the end that
it is anticipated joy-
fully. Such vividness
and joy transfer to
every instance of
the half, whether
temporal or not. In
medias res brings
the reader into that
vividness and excite-
ment. The golden
mean turns vividness
and excitement into
a drive towards vir-
tue. Carbon dating
brings to life what
has passed, vividly
and joyfully making
known what would
otherwise be hid-
den. The half does
so much for human
life that it deserves
praise; it deserves a
celebration.
A
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The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 3, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 7, 2016, newspaper, September 7, 2016; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1221059/m1/7/?q=%22Places+-+United+States+-+Texas+-+Dallas+County+-+Irving%22: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Dallas.