PROCRUSTEAN BED
HAT formidable problems are proposed to speakers who have to squeeze their subject into the Procrustean bed of a 14-minute talk! Uniformity of time in a series is inevitable, but it does have the effect of making all the topics appear equally important. Michael Turnbull, speaking on Sir Donald McLean in the Parliamentary Portraits series (1YC) seemed to be faced with the difficulty of stretching the limbs of his subject a little to fit into the time, but Mary Boyd, given 14 minutes for Edward Gibbon Wakefield, had a much less easy task. The curious and interesting early career of Wakefield demanded special attention, and the whole of her talk might easily have been devoted to it. I wondered for a while if we were going to reach New Zealand at all, but Miss Boyd managed it, and with quite admirable economy, gave us a good, crisp introduction to Wakefield’s New Zealand life and work. If the result lacked depth, at least it was a workmanlike talk, and the speaker merits praise for compressing her much-documented subject into the inflexible couch without having to maim him irreparably in the process.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550318.2.21.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 10
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192PROCRUSTEAN BED New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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