Post-Modern Pilgrimage

"And thou shalt kisse the relikes everychon / Ye, for a grote! Unbokele anon thy purs" (944-945).

Yep, you guessed it. As evidenced by the Middle English, this is The Canterbury Post. I think every nerdy English major who has ever been to England must have written or thought about his/her trip in terms of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Let me jump on the literary tradition, then.

My day went a little something like this. First, in the morning, I auditioned for Little Shop of Horrors. More on that if I get the part. If I don't, then just forget I mentioned it. After the audition, I met Hayley and Danielle at the train station, and we took the 11:31 to London-Paddington. From Paddington Station, we took the Underground to Victoria Station, and from there we caught a train to East Canterbury. The trip took about 3.5 hours, which is considerably faster than the pilgrimages of the Middle Ages.

The most predominate sight in Canterbury is the cathedral, and as we stepped out of the station, the spire greeted us is the English misty-rainy afternoon. We were so excited walking up the street towards the cathedral, making nerdy jokes about my favorite character in the Tales, The Pardoner, and saying to each other, "Kiss my relics!" See, Chaucer's Pardoner is kind of a bad buy (which is kind of an understatement). He preaches sermons about greed and cursing, especially emphasizing the physical suffering of Christ caused by the congregation's sins, in order to swindle the laity; he scares them into buying Papal pardons, indulgences, and relics. The opening quotation comes at the end of The Pardoner's Tale as he tries to dupe the Host of the pilgrimage, basically saying, "Kiss my relics!" It's like "Kiss my grits," only not. "Kiss my relics," has kind of been my Middle English anthem. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

Finally, I have some pictures to show! First, here is the cathedral from outside.


Pretty, yeah? I'm a fan of the flying buttresses. Anyway, the cathedral is where the Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170. Rumors about miracles occurring at the site of his murder prompted a canonization. Ta-da, we have St. Thomas Becket, and we used to have a nifty little shrine for St. Thomas, but Henry VIII tore it down. But there's a candle burning on the spot to signify the shrine.


Since I cannot turn off my brain, I was thinking how the architecture and iconography in the cathedral relates to the literature of the age. More specifically, since I'm fascinated with the Medieval fascination of the body (oh yeah, lots of fascination going around), I looked at how martyrdom, saints' relics, and physical suffering tied in with lay piety and affective devotion. Very briefly, affective devotion is a form of worship which became very popular in the 14th and 15th Centuries, and it is rooted in the emotional connections between the uneducated laity and Christ's corporeal self. Christ became human and thereby, in his human body, he is connected to the worshipers. Medieval Christians were called to ruminate on Christ's suffering body, especially at the Crucifixion--one of the moments which insist most heavily on his humanity. One of the drawbacks is that the laity, in only engaging with the pathos fail to contemplate higher spiritual matters and are vulnerable to the abuses of the Church. For instance, Chaucer's Pardoner loads his sermon with images of Christ's physical body being torn apart on the cross--very vivid stuff--in order to rob the congregation.

In the cathedral's crypt (where unfortunately picture were not allowed), I noticed a theme of beautifying the bloody body. Lots of affective devotional texts concerning the Crucifixion drew close attention to Christ's wounds in his hands, feet, and side. One writer in The Doctrine of the Heart describes Christ's death as a form of barbecue where he is like meat being roasted upon a spit. It's kind of disturbing. Anyway, as fascinated with Christ's wounds as Medieval writers/worshipers are, there is a need to wipe the blood away when it becomes too much. The sarcophagi in the crypt have the figures of the martyrs on the top of them, statues of the dead. The martyrs are depicted with stigmata, blessed with the same wounds as Christ, connecting their physical suffering to his. But instead of bloody holes in their hands, the wounds become roses, thereby anesthetizing the brutality. So, as much as the clergy and writers emphasized the physical suffering of Christ, there is a contradictory need to hide it when the pain becomes too much.

In keeping with the theme of the body of Christ, pilgrims who made their way to Canterbury Cathedral would have been surrounded by the Eucharist, the literal Body of Christ transubstantiation in the Mass. Central to the pilgrimage was the church,and central to the church was the Eucharist, so pilgrims subjected their bodies to long travels and other exhausting feats in order to connect to the body of Christ. I found an interesting stained glass image which I hope you can see. The sun was setting outside, so it was hard to get a good shot, but here it is:


And one more to really show the lower image:


Got it? So, there is a man vomiting and, more importantly, a priest holding the Eucharist over a bed-ridden man, most likely giving him Last Unction. The Body of Christ is present, even in death. It is absolutely central to the Medieval psyche. And pilgrims who made their way to Canterbury to worship in the church would have seen these images of both physical suffering (the man all throw-upy) and of Christ's body on Earth (the Eucharist). Well, I think that's about it for my Canterbury post. I am so glad I went to all of those Medieval Lit lectures this term; they have really shaped the way I read both texts and images of the Middle Ages. I hope I didn't bore you too much. I just get really excited over bodies in Medieval literature. But, hey, cathedral pretty, right? Thanks for sticking with me this long, and I'll post soon about the other show I went to see in London. Have a great day, and remember, don't get suckered in by every man in a robe yelling, "Kiss my relics!"

What's the Victory of a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?

Saturday night, I went off to London's West End to see a production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. After missing the West End's production of A Streetcar Named Desire earlier this term, I was very excited to finally get my Southern Lit fix in England. This production of Cat did very well on Broadway, so naturally, it made it's way over to London. The cast included James Earl Jones as Big Daddy, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama, Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, and Adrian Lester as Brick. I thought this was a brilliant move on the director's part. Williams' play centers around a crumbling Southern plantation, which means that historically the cast has been all white, except for the roles of the servants. The director, Debbie Allen, immediately breaks that tradition and opens up Williams' play to another layer of creative opportunity which is not limited by race. I love that concept! For more about the play, the cast, and the director, visit http://www.catwestend.com/

So, with the big stars, the possibility for a deconstruction of racial boundaries, the "Hey, I'm going to the West End" factor, I was really excited to see this show. I was a little disappointed at first. Sanaa Lathan, in her portrayal of Maggie, did not move me at all, which is strange because Maggie is one of my favorite Williams' characters. She has some great lines, but Lathan's "Southern accent" just distracted me from them. Maggie just faded into the background next to the powerful portrayals of Brick and Big Daddy. In fact, Adrian Lester as Brick was phenomenal. He made the show for me, especially when interacting with James Earl Jones. Those scenes where amazing! Brick's "charm of the defeated" (as Maggie calls it) really came through, and I was drawn into Lester's performance. Great job!

Most of the audience, however, did not quite get Lester's performance or Williams' writings as a whole. One of the conflicts in Cat revolves around Brick's excessive drinking as he tries to remove himself from other issues of death and sexuality. Whenever another character called Brick an alcoholic or when Brick went for another drink, the audience laughed and chuckled. Um, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is not a comedy. The other American students I went with found the laughter very disturbing as well, and I'm still not sure why the audience laughed away Brick's drinking. As far as I can tell, the social construction of alcoholism as a vice is lost on a British audience. Coming from an American background, especially Southern, alcohol is kind of a touchy subject; there were Constitutional Amendments about it after all. The British audience, however, didn't come to the show with the same cultural background, and thus, laughed off any drama over alcoholism. It was shocking. I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing the British culture, but since drinking is so common place and an integral part of social life, the term "alcoholic" does not carry the same cultural connotation. There's a discussion we could have here about perceptions of alcohol in the States and in the UK, but that would be another blog's worth. But maybe we should get into it. British students have said to me many times, "What do you feel about the drinking age back home? It's ridiculous. Kids never learn how to handle their alcohol. I think there's more binge drinking in the States because of the higher drinking age." But they say this to me while they are quite intoxicated themselves. Hi, yeah, Pot, meet Kettle. But in all fairness, they are partially right; when some American students enter college, they drink heavily. So, I'm not sure what to make of this cross-cultural disconnect. Regardless, visiting students doing this program should be aware of the cultural differences surrounding alcohol; I know two of the girls with me this year experienced culture shock because they were unaware. So, while the issues of race and sex kind of faded into the background, Allen's production of Cat certainly raised an interesting issue of alcoholism across the ocean. Sorry for maybe getting preachy and taboo! Please stay tuned for upcoming posts concerning...(the ellipses is for suspense) my pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral followed by a review of the West End's production of An Inspector Calls!

Mission Accomplished

Just a brief update--I'M DONE WITH MICHAELMAS TERM! Oh yeah, that's right, I survived my first term at Regents Park College, Oxford University! I'm pleased. And overall, it was a very productive term. I think I've engaged a lot with Medieval Lit on a deeper level than I would have at CSU because of the fascinating lectures coupled with the tutorials. Same with Oscar Wilde. It's not often that I can listen to the same critic who literally wrote the book on Wilde! At the end of the term, we get to see our reports of our performance in the tutes. Overall, my tutors had positive feedback, which made me happy. One tutor, however, labeled me as "imprecise" and "sprawling" at times. I laughed. She says that because I once turned in an 11 page paper which somehow upset her. Whatever. It doesn't really matter because I made A's in both tutorials. I am very happy with my marks, but more importantly, I'm happy with how much I've grown as a scholar. My Wilde tutor wants to pick me up next term for Modern Lit, and I already have a reading list for the vacation for both Modern and Renaissance. So, I've got plenty of reading to keep me occupied! Yay!

Trapped in a Chapel--It's a Trappel

OK, since I promised you this story in the last post, and since I finally have some time to spare, here is the tale about me, my friend Beth, and St. Mary the Virgin. Beth and I go to poetry readings most every Thursday nights with the OUPS. Two Thursdays ago (wow, I should really update this blog more often), we went to see a poet read in the upstairs of the Vaults and Garden, a little restaurant attached to the Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin. Actually, if you look back to September 26th's post, Hayley and I are eating at the Vaults and Garden. Anyway, Beth and I arrived and were directed to take the hallway back and go up the stairs on our right. We start down the hallway with three other students behind us. We reach the end of the hall and there are three doors--one the left is a door to the kitchen, in front is a locked, bolted door, and on our right is an unmarked black door. "Well," I thought, "surely this is the stairs on our right that the people outside mentioned." We all walked through the door and into the dark, empty cathedral. The door slams shut behind us, and of course, it locks. There are no stairs. There is only us and the Lord. So, we start banging on all the doors we could find, and after 15 minutes of knocking and shouting, I decide to call my friend Sam to let us out. After the shock of hearing, "Sam, please, help, I'm trapped in a chapel," he told me he was on his way. After 10 more minutes of banging, a passer-by (not Sam, who arrived too late to save us) heard us and decided we weren't evil spirits haunting the church, and let us out. So, yes, make of this story what you will.

Race Results

OK, well, I think I've kept you in suspense long enough. (Actually, I got distrcted yesterday with this essay on naming and identity in Malory's Le Morte Darthur, but I don't really want to talk about it. Ever.) The Regent's Park novice crew rowed a very impressive 5:29! Um, yeah, that's 5 minutes and 29 seconds with an average stroke rate of something like 28/29? We were very in time with each other, and frankly, it was the best outing we have had thus far! We were quite pleased with ourselves. Overall, in the entire race, we came in 7th out of 17, and in our division, we were 2nd. Go Regent's! (I'll probably fill you guys in about my week a little later on--it involves being trapped inside a closed cathedral. I have this essay looming above my head like the Sword of Damocles. Not a happy camper.)

Week 5 Blues? No, no.

In Oxford, there is a sort of legend of Fifth Week Blues where students really feel the pains of being a sleepless, tired, worn-out, battered Oxford student. Well, last week, I felt none of the blues, because my Fifth Week was ON FIRE! Oh yeah, I said it--on fire.

First, it started off like any week with my Monday Medieval tutorial. I was actually really enthused about my paper that I submitted to my tutor because I felt I really had a grasp on what the poem "Patience" was trying to do with medieval readership. All of the lectures I had been going to for the past weeks seemed to be preparing me for this one essay. I talked about the problem of Biblical hermeneutics in the Middle Ages (which came from Dr. Kantik Ghosh's brilliant lectures called "Aspects of Medieval Literary Theory") and also about affective piety and its importance in lay worship (thanks to the enthusiastic and enlightening Dr. Annie Sutherland in her lectures on "Belief and the Body in Late Medieval Lit"). So, yeah, maybe I got a little carried away, because my essay ended up being about 3,500 words when the assignment called about 1,500-2,000. My tutor didn't really hold that against me too much, even though on Monday, during our tute, she started off by saying, "Jarred, it is your turn to read your essay out loud, although if you are hoarse by the end, I understand." We spent the entire tute on the points I raised in my essay which she called interesting, but she didn't score me any higher that last week. It was kind of frustrating, but I still wrote a good paper, despite her lack of positive regard.

Then, on Thursday of last week, I had my Oscar Wilde tutorial. Now, can you say, "Publishable?" Well, my tutor certainly can, cause he said it to me. He told me that the argument that I had constructed about Wilde's play, "A Woman of No Importance," could easily be published. So, yeah, I was very very thrilled to hear that. I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin. Furthermore, my tutor suggested that I get in contact with Dr. Sos Eltis, the only other critic who has even touched what I was looking at in Wilde's work. I am so excited! I attended all of her lectures on Wilde, and she is truly an amazing scholar and professor. I would absolutely die to meet with her one-on-one and have an Oscar Wilde love fest. I e-mailed her, and I am still waiting--but I'm optimistic.

Later on that Thursday, to celebrate, I went to a poetry reading. Ok, yeah, I know. Only a complete word nerd goes to a poetry reading to celebrate a great tutorial. Read my blog now, and judge me later, yeah? Anyway, I went to The Big Bang, this restaurant in Jericho (a part of Oxford that was a city and might still be its own city, but I don't think so. It's a thing). Downstairs, the OUPS sponsored a reading by Lemn Sissay, an awe-inspiring poet with a keen perception of human language and how it's spoken. Every word that came from his lips--poetry or just speech in between--was fascinating. In between poems, he said something along the lines of, "Poetry, man--it's dangerous. And it's everywhere." Darn right, Lemn, darn right! I want to share with you one of his poems, which is linked on his blog: http://blog.lemnsissay.com/blog/_archives/2009/11/12/4379536.html
Yeah, go there, and click on the hyperlink "The Waitress" in the fourth stanza. This poem gave me chills and my jaw dropped. It was moving and sickening at the same time. So, brief caveat, if you are uncomfortable with the taboo (sex, death, race, politics), then please do not listen to "The Waitress." Maybe find a safer poet? Maybe find a nice Victorian. But I think "The Waitress" sums up very well what Sissay does with his words, with his audience, and with his life.

Well, that was pretty much the highlights of my last week. I will probably post tomorrow about my this week, 6th Week. You should be on the edge of your seat because, let me just tell you, it ends with a rowing race. Oh yeah, be excited! I raced today, and I'll give you the details tomorrow. I'm going to officially log off the internet and see if I can't write a few more paragraphs on this medieval essay I'm working on. Have a great day!

A Week of Poetry!

This week has been filled with poetry, which is definitely not a bad thing! First, I've been surprisingly into this poem that I'm reading for my Medieval Lit tutorial. It's called "Patience" from The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, which is this collection of four poems: "Pearl," "Cleanness (or sometimes called Purity)," "Patience," and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." These poems are believed to have been written in the late 14th Century, but like with most Medieval manuscripts, it's ambiguity-palooza. Anyway, "Patience" is a retelling of the Jonah story, and because of all of the Medieval lectures I've been going to, I feel like I've got a really good handle on what the poet is doing. One lecture, Aspects of Medieval Literary Theory, is really focused on how the Bible is interpreted and the religious complications that arise when Medieval scholars/clergymen place human interpretations on it. It is a really dense, thick lecture, but it definitely helps here because the Pearl Poet is re-interpreting a Biblical story. Also, I think it can be read as an exploration of affective spirituality--a form of devotional writing that I've been learning about through the Medieval Literary Theory lecture and my favorite Body and Belief in Late Medieval Literature. We'll see what my tutor thinks on Monday when we discuss the poem.

On a less scholastic note, I've joined the Oxford University Poetry Society and attended two OUPS events this week! The first one was a poetry workshop. Three of us from Regent's Park who are interested in writing went, and we met four OUPS members at the Turl Pub and worked on our poems. What happens is that the poet gives out copies of his or her poem to the rest of the group. The poet then reads the poem out loud three times. After that, the poet does not speak until the end; the goal is to keep quiet and listen to what the poem does after it leaves your control--see if it can stand on it's own, you know? The group then takes the poem through three stages of scrutiny. We ask and answer, "What is the poem about?" Then, "What does the poet/poem do well?" And finally we give constructive criticism. I found it incredible illuminating. Since I've only just been branching outside of my Slam Poetry comfort zone, it was really good to see how my more formally constructed page poems were able to exist without performance. By the way, the OUPS workshop group loved my poem. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin.

Also, Thursday night, the OUPS sponsored a reading in Jericho Tavern by the famous poet Simon Armitage. Well, I was at least told that he was famous. He has published many, many books of poetry, written a few novels, plays, and screenplays. Also, a lot of people study his work for this exam in their schools (I don't remember the name of the exam, but I'll post it as soon as I find out). The girl I went with from Regent's, during the exam, she wrote over three pages on the rhythm of his poem "Kid." The reading was amazing, and Armitage has such a striking presence. His poems mix humor and pathos very well, and his style was natural, yet surreal. The last poem that he read (I don't think it's been published yet because it was in a big black book of just typed up poems) was my favorite, and the silence between the end of the poem and the moment that the audience realized that Armitage was finished sent gave me the shivers. It was beautiful. And I want to leave you with one of his poems that stuck with me from Thursday night. It's on the Poetry Archive's website, linked here: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=88

And finally, to complete this highly creative week, last night I auctioned off my poetic (dis)abilities at the annual Regent's Park Charity Promise Auction. The two charities we raised money for were the NDCS (http://www.ndcs.org.uk/) and A4ID (http://www.a4id.org/). Last night's goal was to raise over 400 pounds, so we had a lot of inventive pledges. For example, my friend Omar pledged to read a thirty minute bedtime story, and people bid viciously for that one--he raised about 50 pounds. Well, I pledged a personalized love poem, and just to make sure that Regent's Park knew that I could make an interesting arrangement of love metaphors, I gave a little teaser that whipped up before the auction. Now, I don't like to brag or feed my inherent narcissism, but let me just say that after my little preview, hands were flying into the air for a personalized Jarred Wiehe love poem. I raised 64 pounds. By the end of the night, Regent's Park raised over 1,000 pounds for charity, so I feel both creative and philanthropic. I slept well last night. Well, I have to get to work and be productive today, so I'm off. Have a great day!