Violence

I took a pedagogy course last year. It was a valuable course, yes; and we discussed not only theory but -- critical themes. Such as Holocaust Literature, or Graphic Novels. One of my friends did a project on Violence -- she read books with titles like Teaching in a Violent Age. She is very passionate about this line of theory -- acknowledging that we are a community, and that we are in a community in violent times.

This year, I plan on taking a class on Post-9/11 Literature. I'm very excited.

But I do find this sort of odd. When was the non-violent age? My parents grew up learning to duck-and-cover. Wars dominated the first part of the twentieth century. The 1800s saw our Civil War, but also a lot of turmoil in Europe -- wars for nationalism and independence. Same with the 1700s. The 1600 and 1500s, too, with religious wars thrown in.

I picked up Barbara Tuchman's Distant Mirror today. It's about the fourteenth century ("calamitous" she calls it). The preface mentions that the 1300s suffered from war and plague. Tuchman points out she wanted to write the book because of the similarities to that time and the present.

. . . .

For all of our talk of a Violent Age and Post-9/11 world -- Chaucer was writing in a violent age. He would understand the Iraq War and other conflicts, he would understand AIDS. Art Spiegelman wrote In The Shadow of No Towers; Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales. Which isn't Chaucer not more relevant? Why isn't he presented as -- why is his time, why is he so distant from us? He is not, he is not.

I don't know that Chaucer is universal. I don't know that any person from any time from any place would or could find him relevant. (Or good. Good for who, good for what?)

But we, modern Americans, are some of the inheritors of Chaucer's culture. He is, in fact, speaking to us.

Why don't we listen? What is preventing us?