The Adjudicator, by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

❰

1 2

❱

ON another occasion the contest was held in a large field, and a deep hole was dug in the ground in which the adjudicator was placed, and covered over with boards, so that he should not see anything.

At another place, I had finished my work, and was passing by the end of a platform on which the bands were competing. It had been raining all day, and the water was standing a foot deep under this platform. There I saw a man with his body hanging over the supports and his feet dangling in the water. I said to the committee-man with me, “That poor fellow seems very ill. Hadn’t we better go and help him?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” was the airy reply, “That’s the adjudicator.”

by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912

Extracted from ‘Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Musician: His Life and Letters’ (1915) by William Charles Berwick Sayers (1881-1960).

Précis

At another brass band competition, Coleridge-Taylor was lowered into a deep pit which was then lidded with boards. But the lack of sympathy for adjudicators was never clearer than when he saw a limp, rain-soaked figure hanging over the bandstand rails after a long day. It proved to be a fellow-judge. Nobody else seemed much bothered.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What was in the hole dug by the organisers of the brass band contest?

Suggestion

It was Coleridge-Taylor himself, acting as judge.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Coleridge-Taylor judged a brass band contest. The organisers put him in a deep hole. He could not see which band was playing.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IIdentify. IIPrevent.

Précis

Questions for Critics

Sevens

Jigsaws

Tags

Read Next