Copey of Harvard

About this book

This portrait of the great teacher, catalyst and stimulus, is a warm and capacious tribute to the man who was not only a legend in his lifetime but an enduring influence- as the testimony of the many men whose writing he sparked and shaped in English 2 affirms over and over again in the pages here. For his private ""alumni association"" provides many of the letters, reminiscences, engaging small stories which are used now to demonstrate his wit, his often brutal sarcasms, and then his tremendous warmth toward all she young men he taught, to whom he communicated his enthusiasm and true critical judgment rather than the scholarship with which he was often impatient. Maine born, educated at arvard where (as he would be in later years) he was outdistanced by Kittredge, Copey returned to Harvard as an instructor. His lectures, his readings, his writing classes made him the outstanding figure there, and the best loved. He had no personal life outside of those he taught- and there were those who were put off by him. Adams, whose admiration and affection is clear, also includes dissenting opinions, and his idiosyncrasies, his railties, his sometimes suspect showmanship, his dread of death and his desire for immorality are all part of the character so well, so fondly and so fully remembered here. He may still find a captive audience-- among those who would like to remember Harvard's Golden go and to share in Copeland's legacy to many writers and publishers prominent today.