HISTORY AND LITERATURE

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

May I modify the implication of your heading to Monday's statement about History and Literature--that the Committee is "to Ease ... Requirements"?

From the point of view of the Committee, we are tightening requirements. It is true that the essay for candidates who have to drop out of honors their senior year is no longer required; but this applies to very few people. The rather perfunctory Bible-and-Shakespeare group discussions will no longer be required; but the standard exacted in other group discussions and oral examinations will be raised. The honors thesis will, in general, be limited to 10,000 words, as in many other departments. But this is hardly an "easing" of the requirement. It is simply that greater emphasis will be placed on intelligent condensation.

In our renewed stress on cultural history as the proper subject of this field, we are only returning more actively to the principles that underlay the conception of this field at its beginning. Throughout the last twenty years, such fields as English and History have liberalized their concentration. We see no reason to try to duplicate what they, with better resources, are able to do. History and Literature justifies itself only to the extent that it does what other fields of concentration cannot do. This includes a genuine merging of the study of history with the study of literature. We wish to get away from a tendency of many concentrators now to dichotomize this field in their own thinking and to concentrate heavily in one (usually literature) and endure the other. To this end we have revised some of our thinking about tutorial and the several oral examinations, particularly, as you state in the final oral examination given in the Senior year.

May I add a minor final correction of fact? The group oral examination on an ancient or modern historian in the Junior year still remains. It is simply the literary text, examined in the Sophomore year, that has been modified, at least for the time being. Here the text will be a work not only of high literary merit but also of genuine importance in intellectual, cultural or political history. This is a part of our immediate hope of bringing history back a little more into History and Literature. W.J. Bate, Chairman   Committee on Degrees in   History and Literature