WITH HER TRIM HAIRCUT AND FORMAL DEMEANOR, ELIZABETH SAMET SEEMS MORE influenced by the cadets she teaches at West Point than the scholars who trained her at Harvard and Yale. Yet Samet, an associate professor of English at the nation’s foremost military academy, is very much a civilian. In her just-published second book, Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point the Weston, Mass. native chronicles her experiences during the past decade as a teacher of student-soldiers, many of whom are now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before the start of fall classes, Samet spoke with Timothy Patrick McCarthy, a lecturer in history and literature at Harvard, about why we study literature in the post-9/11 world.

WHAT COURSES DO YOU TEACH?

I teach a course called English 102, which has themes from “ancient epic” to “contemporary poetry” and everything in between.

HAS THE WAY YOU TEACH LITERATURE CHANGED SINCE THE WAR IN IRAQ BEGAN?

I find that when I make a concerted effort to talk about the war, when I go in with this grand scheme and say, "Look at these connections," it falls flat. The cadets are the ones who make the most meaningful connections.

I was talking recently with a cadet named Kevin and I said, “I’m thinking about assigning some really great travel books from Iraq, Mesopotamia. Do you want to read about that?” And he said, “If everything is about Iraq, that’s pandering. We’re English majors, we want to read other things.”

IN YOUR BOOK YOU MAKE CLEAR YOUR FRUSTRATION OVER THE IRAQ WAR. DOES THIS COME UP IN THE CLASSROOM?
We have debates about what’s just and unjust—often, the cadets make analogies to the present situation. But I don’t steer them to think the war is right or wrong. That’s not my job.

YOU ALSO TELL THE STORY OF A GROUNDSKEEPER WHO ASKED YOU, EARLY IN YOUR TENURE AT WEST POINT, “WHAT’S YOUR FUNCTION?” WELL, WHAT IS YOUR FUNCTION?
One part is certainly to provide the plebes [first-year cadets] with an introduction to literature comparable in terms of quality, diversity of opinion, and richness to what they can get elsewhere.
I want the cadets to have a private intellectual life, and to be the best officers they can be as well. After all, if they stay in the Army, these are the people who are going to be the generals of the future. And if they get out, they’ll likely be policymakers.

WHAT TEXTS HAVE YOU FOUND MOST INSTRUCTIVE FOR TEACHING THEMES OF WAR AND PEACE?
In a strange way, because it’s not explicitly about war, it would be Hamlet. I have a very particular reading of Hamlet, which emphasizes the importance of the end of the play when they say, “Let’s give Hamlet a soldier’s funeral.” And I think, “This is so wrong! He’s not a soldier and he didn’t want to be a soldier.” So that’s one. The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid are others.

HOW IS TEACHING AT WEST POINT DIFFERENT FROM TEACHING AT, SAY, HARVARD?
Both groups of students are keenly interested in their careers. But my students are more likely than your students to find themselves at the violent margins, to have other people’s lives in their hands. The stakes are higher.

SO HOW CAN THEY EVER SHARE A COMMON PERSPECTIVE—OR EVEN A SHARED SENSE OF DUTY—WHEN THEY HAVE SUCH DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIPS WITH WAR?
In the absence of a draft, it’s easy to stereotype the soldiers. There’s this cavalier dismissal of the military as a monolithic institution—the idea that to be a soldier you have to love war or be a bloodthirsty killer. Maybe we can overcome that with some understanding of the real sophistication of people who choose military service.

AND HOW WOULD YOUR STUDENTS VIEW HARVARD?
My students sometimes forget that there are other paths of service and that not everyone who goes to civilian schools is simply interested in making a lot of money.

WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART ABOUT TEACHING LITERATURE TO YOUNG SOLDIERS?

In many parts of their day, because of their training, the cadets encounter people who don’t care what they think. I have to create a climate in which them questioning my interpretation of a poem is not the same as questioning somebody’s order. That’s a hard thing for an 18-year-old to turn on and off.

YOU’RE GETTING THEM AT A MOMENT WHEN THEY’RE BEING TAUGHT THE VALUE OF FOLLOWING ORDERS. AREN’T YOU TEACHING THEM A VERY DIFFERENT SKILL?

I like to think the resilience it requires to switch back and forth is also helpful. People who think that it’s not a good thing for us to teach them literature—that they’ll suddenly be defiant and disobedient and terrible officers—have very little faith in the cadets.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO SKEPTICS WHO SAY THAT STUDYING LITERATURE IS IRRELEVANT DURING WARTIME?

People who dismiss literature out of hand forget how deeply they’ve been shaped by it. Literature and culture are part of our humanity. It’s just as important now as it’s ever been. Maybe even more.