Though he was a "chronic C-plus/B-minus" student in high school, English professor Patrick Cheney decided to pursue literature in college -- and has work in 15 publications to show for it.

Cheney began his undergraduate degree at the University of Montana as a forestry major who had wrestled competitively for most of his life and had never taken any particular interest in literature.

A few literature classes later, Cheney's perspective changed completely and he switched his major to English in his sophomore year.

"I decided that I loved literature so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life reading it," he said. "I just worked from that inner core."

The three main poets Cheney now researches and studies are William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser.

He is also interested in the literary relations between the three, who lived and wrote during the same time period, and "the way in which writers find themselves in a contest with other living writers," he said.

But it wasn't literature itself that inspired Cheney to teach. Instead, he credits the "incredible" teachers he had in college and graduate school as inspiring him to instruct English.

One professor Cheney had for a Shakespeare class made the subject "riveting." Cheney said it opened up British literature to him, and he never looked back.

"Somewhat astonishingly I had an intuition when I was in my early 20s that if I just believed strongly enough that I could study literature, I could make a living at it," he said, adding he previously had no ambition to become a teacher or a scholar.

Peter Vertacnik (senior-English) said a comparative literature class he took with Cheney was "really rewarding."

"He's really demanding in one sense, but really enthusiastic about what he studies and about classes," Vertacnik said. "He made me want to work really hard."

As a professor, Cheney said each class is different and helps him learn how to teach.

"The good news is that when you're teaching Shakespeare, Spencer and Marlowe, it's pretty compelling stuff," he said.

Primarily, Cheney said he tries to "reinvent and rediscover" the authors and their works as he talks to students without lecture notes.

"The best part about teaching is seeing students become excited about Shakespeare, especially since many Penn State undergraduates have very little experience with these authors before," he said.

Vertacnik said the classroom environment is "fluid" and "alive."

Cheney described himself as the kind of writer he was "destined to become." Though he began with a real interest in fiction, and still fantasizes about revisiting the genre later in life, he said he discovered his talent is in literary criticism, and his writing style mirrors that.

"The literary critic is a kind of intermediary between works of literature and the public," he said. "That's what a university professor of English does."

Currently, Cheney is on sabbatical working on writing a book in a series for Blackwell Publishers about reading poetry. The book's topic will be reading 16th century poetry.

Cheney said he learned a lot from his professors and colleagues and is trying to emulate their methods to help students who read it.