Dead Poets Society (group)

The Dead Poets Society is a secret group initiated by John Keating and his classmates in 1941-1944 in order to "suck the marrow out of life." It is presumably founded by John Keating during his time at Welton Academy and was led by him.

It started out only consisting of Welton Academy boys, but when it was reinstated in 1959 by Neil Perry and his friends, it accepted two girls. Neil Perry acted as the new leader during the 1959 school year when he discovered John Keating's yearbook.

Formation and disbandment
John Keating founded and presumably led the Dead Poets Society meetings during his time at Welton Academy. It is unknown how many classmates joined in the group, but the group owned their own copy of Five Centuries of Verse and wrote Henry David Thoreau's Excerpt from Walden in the front cover. From what we know, Welton Academy staff did not look too favorably upon the group leading up, even during the 1959 school year. After John Keating's graduation, the group was disbanded until it's revival fifteen years later.

Formation
Neil Perry was the first to find about about the Dead Poets Society when he found Keating's senior annual in the library. He and his friends asked Keating about it, and both Charlie Dalton and Neil became infatuated with the idea of it's revival. Richard Cameron, Stephen Meeks, Knox Overstreet, and Gerard Pitts were hesitant at the idea at first but quickly joined the group. Todd Anderson was persuaded to join by Neil, and eventually gave in once it was confirmed to him that he did not have to read, but he could take minutes. John Keating later left the original copy of the Society's Five Centuries of Verse on the desk in Neil Perry’s room. The first meeting of the new Dead Poets Society was held autumn of 1959 at night in The Old Indian Cave.

Typical society meeting
A Dead Poets Society meeting was always started by the leader reading the Excerpt from Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Each of the poets would read a poem they would select from the book, a poem they wrote themselves, or one they brought with them. Food and snacks were snuck in by one or more of the members and dog biscuits would have to be bought in order to distract Gale Nolan's watchdog while sneaking out. The meetings did not have to always be at night, but most of them were held after bedtime for the Welton Academy students.

Disbandment
The Dead Poets Society met it's end after the 15th of December, 1959 with it's last known meeting being held that night in a deleted scene. Neil Perry's death, Charlie Dalton's expulsion, and the firing of John Keating marked an end to the group as a whole. Knox Overstreet ended up with the girl he wanted to be with from the beginning and Todd Anderson learned to speak up for himself by the end of the group, showing it was not all in vain.