SOURCE: Hagopian, John V. “A Reader's Moral Dissent from Lionel Trilling's ‘Of This Time, Of That Place’.” In American Literature in Belgium, edited by Gilbert Debusscher, pp. 227-38. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988.

In the following essay, Hagopian elucidates the relationship between Trilling and Joseph Howe, the implied narrator of “Of This Time, Of This Place.”

Let me begin with a passage from “Of This Time, Of That Place”:

It was a busy and official day of cards and sheets, arrangements and small decisions, and it gave Howe pleasure. Even when it was time to attend the first of the weekly Convocations he felt the charm of the beginning of things when intention is still innocent and uncorrupted by effort. He sat among the young instructors on the platform and joined in their humorous complaints at having to assist at the ceremony, but actually he got a clear satisfaction from the...