Dr. M.P.A. Sheaffer: On English Literature, Art, Music, Poetry and the Humanities

In Dr. M.P.A. Sheaffer’s tiny office at Millersville University, which she calls her “tool box,” the shelves are stacked high with books on English literature, poetry, art history, and the fundamentals of the English language.

These are the things that give her pleasure and purpose as a long-time English professor at Millersville. She surrounds herself with knowledge that comes from her beloved books. She shares what she has learned with her students and encourages them to make their own discoveries into the world of literature and the Humanities.

“The Humanities are the core of life and of civilization,” says Dr. Sheaffer, relating that one of her favorite courses at Millersville was Humanities 300, which combined literature, music, and art.

Dr. Sheaffer grew up in Shippensburg, starting her academic career at nearby Shippensburg University, where she majored in English. She headed south to New Orleans for a master’s degree and her doctorate in English at Tulane University on a full scholarship. Then she went to Florence, Italy, for a master’s in art history at Rosary College Graduate School at Villa Schifanoia and her master’s in Humanities at New York University.

Her quest for knowledge didn’t end there. She earned a certificate in teaching the English language at Marble Arch Language Center in London. Her post-graduate work took her throughout Great Britain and the United States, to the University of Edinburgh, Oxford University, Cambridge University, the University of London, New York University and Columbia University.

As Dr. Sheaffer likes to say, she has been at Millersville University “long enough to know what the place is like.”

There is a hint of a smile when she says that. Dr. Sheaffer has never been one to define herself by anyone else’s terms but her own. She doesn’t reveal her age or exactly how long she has been sharing her reverence for the English language and the Humanities with Millersville students. Even as a child, she loved her English, art, and music classes, but would have preferred to take wood shop instead of home economics.

Dr. Sheaffer believes that the Humanities are intertwined with music, history, science, literature and art. She is particularly fond of the Renaissance period and Shakespeare, along with the Victorian era. Not long ago, she was at Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre in London, when the new artistic director presented a new version of her favorite play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Dr. Sheaffer was not pleased by the efforts to change the language or the characters in the timeless classic. One should never tamper with the Bard.

Her multi-faceted interests in art and music run the gamut. She loves the music of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, who composed the sound tracks of their time in history. A few cherished artists from the Renaissance, Victorian period, and Pre-Raphaelite era include Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, especially Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Like Rossetti, Dr. Sheaffer is also a poet. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, Poetry Society of America, and the American Academy of Poets. She has edited four anthologies of poetry. She is the author of Moonrocks and Metaphysical Turnips (2nd ed., Oct. 2000) and Lacquer Birds and Leaves of Brass. A third volume, Paths, was also published in England in 2000.

In 2011, she won first prize in a contest in the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, the prize for which was publication of a new collection of her poetry, Cosmic Internetting and Other Stars. She has written books in Vienna, including Otto Wagner: The New Face of Vienna, Otto Wagner: Tradition and Moderne, Unforgettable Austrian Children’s Books, and Jugendstil, with her photography and text.

Some of her poetry is inspired by her travels. In “Moonrocks,” she writes of a Chinese garden with the words: “There through the stone moon, Mortared into the wall, There past the window, Fanning into the concrete, Waits, The four-toed dragon…”

She takes a whimsical approach in her garden poetry with titles such as “Spinach,” “Tomato” and “Asparagus.” In “E. Pluribus Onion,” she writes: “The Onion: Spring-white, whiskered, But smooth, Sharp, sweet—Yet not all, The rank and file, Un-onion in their peelings, Just rank…”

Dr. Sheaffer sings in the fall and spring concerts with the Richmond Hill Chorale and for the fall, winter, and spring concerts with the Canterbury Chorale Society. She also sings annually in the July concert of an international chorus in the Royal Albert Hall in London. This year they performed Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”

Dr. Sheaffer is also a “ringer,” explaining that a ringer is a singer who is an extra in a choir. Her willingness to fill in where needed has given her many opportunities, such as singing alto in the All-Haydn spring concert of the Richmond Hill Sacred Music Chorale in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York City, when the chorale sang Haydn’s “Maria Therese Te Deum” and “Paukenmesse.” She has also sung as an alto ringer in the winter concert of the Canterbury Choral Society at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York, with the St. Olave’s Singers for the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers’ annual Carol Service in St. Olave’s Church in London, and with the Chorvereinigung St. Augustin at the Jesuitenkirche of Vienna, Austria.

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Editor’s Note: At the request of Dr. Sheaffer this article was not written in AP Style which is used in other articles in Millersville News.