Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by, or: Servetus’ textual confessions

Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) recovers from the battle with Azog under the ministrations of Gandalf (Ian McKellen), in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

***

So often you exasperate me.

Exhaust me.

Flatten me.

So often I think, “I did not sign up to teach Life Lessons 101. I’m not sure I could pass Life Lessons 101 myself.”

I hate every microsecond of the time I spend — waste — policing you.

***

So often, over the last year, I wonder, “Why am I still doing this? And why am I still doing it this way?”

The answer: I can’t stop believing.

The answer: I still remember so many decisive moments of my life, so many world-altering recognitions, connected with the “great books.”

We were talking about one the other day, here. Servetus has it, bad, for Thucydides.

The easiest answer for me to “Why are you a professor?” is “So I can keep on reading.”

Great books are not in style any more; the globalized world has made this canon irrelevant not only in the eyes of its traditionally marginalized critics, but even in the view of those who might be assumed to wish to support it. Oddly enough, the attack on the idea that students should read (for example) Edmund Burke comes at this moment most vehemently from those who one would think agree most with Burke.

The first critique compels me, though. The world is much bigger than “the West.” We should teach our students to see that. We should help them figure out for themselves how to be aware with whatever tools we can give them.

***

Richard Armitage as John Standring in episode 3 of Sparkhouse. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

***

And, in fact, one encounters truth in so many surprising places. One can find truth in the midst of lies. One can find truth [cough] in one’s own reflection in the eyes and the dramatic performances of an actor in productions with less-than-optimal scripts. In a visceral jerk of joy to the solar plexus in response to a picture. In a joke. Even in fanfics.

Pace recent charges against me personally and lovers of “literature” generally, I’m not a snob, and I hope that if you met me, you would not find me pretentious. Nonetheless, for me so many stunning moments have been connected with reading, perhaps precisely because I didn’t learn Latin from the age of six. Because — apart from the King James Bible — I had to claim such things for myself as an (young) adult. Because they were not always easy.

And so I sometimes think, if I can’t give the world anything else, I can give it this; I can keep these students reading books that they wouldn’t read otherwise, and maybe that will get them to read some other books I haven’t assigned, and some of it will click immediately and some of it in the middle term and in some cases — a decade or more later, even — a student will find me on facebook and say, “Thank you for making me read that; now, I understand.”

I can open up their own search for truth; I can help them mount the steps of mastery. It’s all I want. For them to be able to say they figured it out. For themselves. Whatever it is that they figure out.

“Now, I understand.” That’s all I want to hear any student of mine say. Today. Tomorrow. This term. Some day. Ever.

***

Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) tells Bilbo Baggins that he was wrong, in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

***

I wasn’t hoping for much this afternoon. Friday afternoon before a long vacation weekend. Summer session with a long meeting time. A very hard reading given the average preparation and intellect of student at this university. Probably (as usual) I (optimistically) assigned too many pages.

But you were there.

YOU. WERE. THERE.

When I walked in, you were all silent, till someone said, nervously, “So, what did you guys think about this reading?”

I waited, a bit nervous myself, mentally ticking over my game plan in case I was going to have to take you page by page through the reading.

And six people broke out simultaneously in loud praise!

You read the reading.

You connected it to assertions I’d made in lecture the previous class meeting.

Even better, you used it to challenge assertions I’d made. And then modify them.

You got the jokes the author was making! We got into a long discussion about textual irony!

One of you said, “This reading casts a lot of suspicion on what the author of the last reading was saying.”

One of you asked, “How can we trust any narrator, though? Especially one who writes so much about liars?”

One of you asked, “Do you think this says anything about the alleged ‘crisis of authority’ we’ve been talking about?”

One of you said, “I read this and I feel like he’s speaking to me, personally.”

Another answered, “Is that a real connection, though, or is it just something you do for yourself in your mind?”

One of you said, “Do you think this author has a self?”

The discussion went ten minutes over before anyone noticed.

I wished you all a good Memorial Day weekend — most were working — and said I’d see you on Wednesday for the second part of the discussion.

The last person out of the room stopped to chat about parallels between the reading and The Prince — which she had read in high school social studies and not understood.

She said, “Today, after our discussion, I think I finally got what Mr. [XXXXX] was saying. It just clicked!”

“Drop him a note,” I urge her, “he’ll be so thrilled to know that.”

“I’ll try to remember,” she said, and, “I think I’m taking this book with me on vacation this summer. I’m going to need to reread it, so I can be sure I understand.”

I smiled, and turned to erase the whiteboard.

***
   This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

~ by Servetus on May 25, 2013.