WALL STREET JOURNAL: Who Ruined The Humanities? “The disheartening fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few—the British scholar Frank Kermode kindled Shakespeare into an eternal flame in my head—there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two hours in the periodontist’s chair. In their numbing hands, the term ‘humanities’ became code for ‘and you don’t even have to show up to get an A.'”