A few months ago I saw the film Dead Poets' Society. Robin Williams' character, John Keating constantly reminded his students to "seize the day," by quoting poets such as Herrick and Whitman. The young men in the film were inspired to "make their lives extraordinary."

Dead Poets' Society touched something in me. I've always loved classic literature -- I even majored in English for awhile, until I realized broadcast/cable was less demanding.

But the night I saw the film, my enthusiasm for literature was renewed. I vowed to begin reading the classics again and work on making my life extraordinary.

The two friends that I saw Dead Poets' Society with were just as motivated as I was. We made a pact to hold weekly meetings of the society, just as the guys in the film had. We would sit together by candlelight, reading poetry from a huge volume I had saved from a freshman English class.

We tried for the first time around 10 on a rainy night. We extinguished the lights, lit the candles and gathered around the table to bring passion and zeal to our minds.

The only problem was, we kept getting off track.

Oh, we did fine for about 15 minutes. We read several works that were highlighted in the film and talked about seizing the day.

But then it became increasingly difficult for us to concentrate. Someone wanted to put on music, someone else said we couldn't get the full effect with music playing and we all seemed to have a chronic case of the giggles.

So we bagged the first meeting of the Dead Poets' Society early, and although we often mention holding another one, we never seem to get around to it. Either we're listening to The Wall, or The Simpsons are on or the phone rings -- it's always something.

I'm disappointed that my friends and I couldn't find a way to incorporate literature into our lives. Lately I've been trying to figure out why we failed so miserably. Are we unusually lazy, or is this lack of literary culture a common thing today?

This is the 90s, and we're pampered with novels on tape and 24-hour headline news. With all this convenient information at hand, why would anyone want to take four hours to read James Joyce?

We do not read without distractions anymore, according to Dr. George Steiner of Oxford University. Steiner says sounds from radios and televisions are permeating our minds as we read, preventing full concentration on the words on the page. In a piece called "Do Books Matter?" Steiner suggests that we, in our electronic age, no longer appreciate literature as it was intended to be read.

Is this true? Are we losing the important messages of the classic writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Walt Whitman to the enticing antics of Michael J. Fox and Madonna?

I think we may be. Literature is not the most hip field anymore. Some would argue that the messages of the classics aren't even important, much less pertinent to late 20th-century society.

Penn State, for example, requires a core curriculum of 46 credits, but none of those are in classic English or American literature. Six credits of English are required for all students to graduate, but both courses are in writing, not literature. English 15 is a basic composition course, and English 202 is a more extensive survey of practical writing in business, science, humanities or the social sciences.

A student who graduates from Penn State could feasibly never read any of the classics such as Shakespeare or Dickinson, depending on how poor his or her high school English program was.

The friends with whom I started the Dead Poets' Society had never seen any of the poems we read before that night. The only reason I was familiar with the works of Herrick, Donne and Keats that we read on that rainy night was because I attended a small liberal arts college for one year before transferring here.

At my first college, I was required to take a freshman English course in which we interpreted the works of British and American poets and authors from the 17th to the 20th century. I came to Penn State because I thought an education from a large, reputable institution would be more valuable to me than one from an obscure, private college.

For the most part, I've been satisfied with my decision. But I'm concerned that literature is not a part of my required curriculum. Has our society become so gratification oriented that we no longer appreciate the works of the great writers?

Appreciating literature probably won't get you a promotion or a company car, but as Dr. Steiner puts it, it can connect us to the "unbroken chain of echo" that began in the minds of the great thinkers.