The History Teacher

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Analysis

Billy Collins was inspired by Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his youth. Beat poetry was a movement that responded to post-World War II Modernism. The movement started in the 1940s and lasted through the 1950s. Beat poets questioned mainstream politics and culture and sought to change consciousness and break from conventional writing expectations. This early poetic inspiration can be seen in Collins’s canon, as he often questions conventional ways of thinking.

The Beat movement anticipates many elements of Postmodernism, with which Collins can more closely be identified.

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The term Postmodern is broader than other literary movements, largely because it is a term used to describe a large portion of contemporary poetry written after and reacting to the Modernist movement that lasted until the late 1950s.

As a result of this broad categorization, Collins’s poetry both reflects these qualities and does not. Collins’s use of free verse and general rejection of poetic forms align with a key feature of Postmodernism, though he does not push it as far as other poets who deconstruct form more thoroughly. Many Postmodern poems are self-reflexive. A self-reflexive poem is aware of its construction and artificiality and considers the impact. Authors use things like humor and irony to play with meaning and established order. Collins’s poetry, including “The History Teacher,” though not completely self-reflexive, does use its construction and techniques such as humor and irony to criticize the established order. Postmodern poetry can also include metafiction, fragmented narratives, stream of consciousness, and dramatic rejections of form and convention. While Modernism was the search for truth and meaning in life, Postmodernism often said that there is no universal truth. Collins’s poetry does not fall under these more extreme qualities of Postmodern poetry.

Historical Analysis

Starting in the 1980s and lasting through the 1990s, American culture and academia debated what history and literature should be taught and how it should be taught.

A 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, contributed to the re-examination of history. Zinn reframed what he saw as a nationalistic understanding of American history as the consistent exploitation of minorities and the manipulation of the masses by elite political rulers. This framing and its subject matter brought ignored moments and points of view in history to mainstream audiences. The book is now used widely in classrooms. Collins is critical of the sort of sugarcoated historical narrative that Zinn criticizes and corrects. Collins’s satirical fictionalization of history is more transparent than that which Zinn is commenting upon, as he wants his reader to understand how and why these historical revisions happen and why they are actually counterproductive and dangerous for students.

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Also during these two decades, academia and American culture engaged in what has been deemed the Canon Wars. These debates centered on what should and should not be taught in high school and university English courses and what works and authors should be considered classics. Allan Bloom and other traditional conservatives favored what are now called ‘the dead white men’ of the classic canon, while multiculturalists argued for a wider array of works and authors, especially those who have been marginalized or come from outside the Western sphere, to be included. This disagreement often included discussions of what is history and what is historical truth, questions that Collins answers in “The History Teacher.”

In addition, the late 1980s also saw the rise in school violence, with teachers and others attributing this rise to the glorification of violence in movies and music. Collins subtly criticizes this belief, instead suggesting that violence emanates from the failure to properly educate students. The lack of truthful education leads to an ignorance that breeds violence.