fame, so the room was crowded with students and 
there was a great air of anticipation as the great 
man walked into the room.

There are a couple of things I remember even from 
that first class he taught—it was in modern 
poetry, and we were supposedly going to start 
with Gerard Manley Hopkins, so he took a Gerard 
Manley Hopkins poem and he read a couple of lines, 
and then he said, “What’s the key word in that 
line?” And of course everyone was scared to open 
their  mouths, until a brave student actually said 
“Well, I think it’s the word buckle.” And McLuhan 
said “Yes,” and, of course, that was the crucial