For example, my first year at Harvard, Macbeth was the fall production on the Loeb Mainstage. I arrived at the auditions excited by the possibility of performing in a Shakespeare play. Soon, however, I realized that the director planned to change the traditional interpretation of some of the characters.
Tradition, which is so ubiquitous in so many ways at Harvard, is not the exclusive domain of curmudgeons who live in the past. We all welcome the advent of the new--some of it may survive the trials of time and some may not.
But, as we all tread our paths relentlessly into the future, let's not fear to give the legacy of the past its due regard. Someday, what are now the newest of your ideas or mine will, after all, be relegated to that past.
Jenny E. Heller '01, a Crimson editor, is a French and Italian concentrator in Lowell House.