Ken's College Thesis

Foreword

What follows is the senior thesis written by Ken Kronberg in March 1968 as part of his fulfillment of the requirements for graduating from St. John’s College, Santa Fed, NM.

Although St. John’s College, based in Annapolis, MD, is the third oldest college in the United States (after Harvard and William and Mary), the college’s second campus, in Santa Fe campus, was opened only in 1964, and the first class at that new campus—Ken’s class—graduated in 1968.

When Ken wrote this thesis, he was 19 years old, although he would turn 20 in the following month: April. He had entered St. John’s at barely 16.

For this essay, he won the senior thesis prize for Santa Fe’s first graduating class.

Two years later, his soon-to-be wife, Molly Hammett, won the senior thesis prize for the graduating class of 1970 in Annapolis.

Shortly before his death in 2007, in a discussion of poetry Ken described this thesis as an instance of Socratic irony.

The thesis is here in .PDF format.