William Elton. One of my Professors at UCR in the early ‘60s.

He was a Shakespeare Scholar Expert, and had written the book. King Lear and the Gods. I think I bought a copy. I am ashamed to admit that I have yet to read it, and am not sure I can find my copy, if indeed I have one.

There’s always the Library. I’m sure UCR has a copy on the shelves. Elton was a Favored Son, Nationally Renowned, one of the Intellectual Elite.

I took his class, as all English Majors at UCR must when they cover Shakespeare. Shirley took his class too, in another session, so we both knew him separately, just not at the same time simultaneously, and that’s how he knew us.

We could compare notes, and did.

I think he was the one who steered me to write my paper on Troilus and Cressida. I noticed how certain characters took control of the language and set the rhetorical standard for the scenes in which they appeared.

Troilus from upper nobility set the tone and style of locution in his scenes and everyone spoke in elevated terms.

When Thersites entered, he dragged the rhetoric down to the lower level of the street. Even the metaphors were common man.

Elton was sufficiently impressed, and recommended me to the book of criticism where many of the Shakespeare plays were looked at through the same lens, so I gave up any idea of offering my paper for publication because it had already been done.

However, I realized that I had earned my observations independently on my own, explored some examples in greater depth, and probably should have added mine to the growing pile of Shakespeare adumbration. But I was not sufficiently ambitious, was a shy humble undergrad, and didn’t pursue it further.

Hindsight so often reveals the mistakes we made.

Elton gave me an A.

But I had attracted his attention, and we became friends.

Actually, that friendship began earlier when I was a first semester freshman.

I’ve told the story elsewhere, but I’ll re-tell it here because it belongs as part of the Elton context.

I was thrilled to be in college where the restraints were removed and we were unleashed to learn everything.

There was a Poetry Group that met in Watkins Hall. We sat in a room, mostly on the floor, read our poetry passed around anonymously, discussed it, and voted on the contents for Poetry UCR. Elton led the group and wrote the introduction for each issue.

I, shy and eager, brought a slim sheaf of manuscripts from high school. Elton glanced at them, said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Yes,” and he made anonymous copies to be passed around for discussion.

The first poem of mine under consideration, and the first entry of my recent book, For Lo These Many, was an exploration of primitive man before language, when those early ancestors were in the grip of a universe beyond their understanding. I gave them simple words to embody the feeling of being overwhelmed, and entitled it “Primitive.”

But I misspelled the word. I substituted “a” for “i” and the title now read “Primative.”

The papers were passed around and an upper division student, maybe Frank Bidart who went on to become a nationally recognized poet, I read him in books, said cruelly, “Is this a poem about a monkey, or did a monkey write it?”

I shrank red-faced into attempted invisibility, and whispered inaudibly, “Please, move on to the next poem by anybody else!”

I do take comfort from the fact that, after correcting the spelling, the poem was published in The New Infinity Review.

Freshmen learn a lot in college, sometimes by brute force or applied pressure, and I had a lesson I’m still learning, “If you write something, read it over first before you give it to anybody else to read.”

With that knowledge, I could have been in government.

Elton led a good Poetry Group of students, Professors, and community members, and we put out a strong issue of Poetry UCR.

Shirley and I were both in the Poetry Group together, her poems were published in Poetry UCR, so we both became part of the Elton Circle of Influence.

In many ways, he permeated both of our lives.

He saw how beautiful Shirley was, saw how she and I were together, and said to me one day on the basketball courts, “I’ll bet you get a lot of exercise doing pushups.”

I was startled to be suddenly just one of the guys doing guy talk. That was not part of my secluded upbringing, and I felt awkward, especially around a renowned Professor who had, so to speak, let his pants down.

I came to realize that, whatever else he was, Elton was a horn dog.

He said that when he went back east to study at the Bodleian Library and lecture at the Universities, he also went to the opera, saw the legendary Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, where she wore a famously revealing low-cut opulent dress. He said, “She put up a good front,” and “We cheered extra loud so she would bow lower.”

Elton didn’t push his greatness, though when he went to the Huntington Library for research in the archives, the staff practically bowed before him and swept the floor ahead of his footsteps.

When Shirley and I got married, Elton joined the contingent of UCR Professors who met our high school teachers as they all came to share the satisfaction of seeing their success, steering us together because they knew even before we did that we were meant for each other.

We had Elton over for dinner in our little Crest house, a range of student housing for marrieds, foreign students, visiting Professors and dignitaries.

We had a little aquarium on a table by the couch. It had water plants and a gold fish swimming around. There was a light designed to shine up from the bottom. We had never turned it on. But in honor of the Special Occasion and our Honored Guest, I turned on the light which illuminated the swimming fish.

Shirley was in the kitchen, finishing preparations for dinner. I was on the couch with Elton, discussing literature, life, and whatever else he wanted to talk about.

We were both watching the fish. The aquarium didn’t have a pump. The light was heating the water. The fish was swimming faster and faster in circles to escape the rising heat. It was being cooked before our very eyes, gave up the ghost, and floated belly-up to the surface just as Shirley emerged from the kitchen and announced, “Dinner’s ready!”

We laughed, and Elton said, pointing at the aquarium with the boiled gold fish, “Is there enough for all three of us?”

Elton was quite taken by Shirley. Who could not be? He had noticed her in class. She was everything anyone could ever want, beautiful, intelligent, a professional ballet dancer, a lovely soprano, with an independent wit, an unfettered sense of humor, fun to be with and effortlessly energetic.

Dinner conversation. Elton said to Shirley, “I’m going back east to study and lecture. Why don’t you come with me?”

What? In front of me? Trying to steal my wife?

Shirley said demurely, “I don’t think so.”

Elton said, “Do you have a sister?”

He didn’t give up. Before he left to cross the country, he made a last effort. He drove a Mercedes. He said to Shirley, “I won’t need the car anymore. Would you like it?”

We couldn’t afford the upkeep of a Mercedes and she declined.

He left us with memories.

And he wrote good poetry. You can read some of it in Poetry UCR.

I have copies.