Ellen Lanzano

Professor of English

For the last twenty years I have been teaching literature courses at our college.  I have tried during this time to help students experience for themselves that the most important basis for studying great literature is to fulfill the Christian mandate to know and understand ourselves and each other.  If students learn to apply this principle in reading texts, they will be practicing values values that will help them work toward the common good in society as mature adults.

Divisiveness causes our most profound social problems, and we separate ourselves from others to the extent that we remain in ignorance of their experience.  But, conversely, we have compassion and the willingness to help, to the extent that we can apprehend those who are different from us.

My life work in its largest sense is just this: to let great authors by their edifying work help our students develop a commitment to participating in the lives of all members of society, a commitment motivated by compassion and understanding and the willingness to help.  The potential impact of literary masterworks is that their humanizing force can achieve this end.

In applying this principle to my teaching, I have been challenged to live by it in my own personal life as well.  For me, a passion for literature is a fire that grows by what it feeds on.  My enthusiasm for teaching in my field waxes with the years, rather than wanes. I am more aware each day of the fact that it is a privilege to live in close daily contact with the great world souls of the literary tradition.  I feel that I continue to benefit spiritually in the same way that I hope that my students will benefit from enduring texts because they introduce us to the world itself and all its inhabitants.