Medieval Second project

Opening the Door to Different Discussions in Renaissance Literature.

Classes like Medieval and renaissance literature are important for English and literary majors but as great as it is to learn about that time period, most popular works like Shakespeare should also involve a second to the unpopular works. In class we discussed a lot of modernly controversial concepts and how they applied to medieval works but we don’t often think about whether or not it was even something on their minds. As great as theorizing the intentions and thoughts of long dead authors we don’t really talk about what their day to day was like, how they lived? Where were they in the social hierarchy? What major events happened around them in their lifetime? All of these things would have influenced the author’s decisions and ideas yet they are not nearly as discussed as annotating medieval works with the lens of current controversial topics or lens of current events, struggles, and fixations. So while the discussions we have are important it is also important to discuss these other topics. 

Obviously race isn’t a new concept, but it is a human made concept to categorize the changes of human habitational evolution*. We know what discussions of race look like today but in literature it’s not deeply discussed on what it was like back then. Instead we discuss the concepts of our convocations of the subject as if they were saying the exact things we are back then. If that was the case then progress would be a lot farther along. 

People don’t write the same, back then everything was a poem and even if it wasn’t the language they used still sounded like poems, they saw things differently because they didn’t have what we have and we can’t pretend that they did. They didn’t have technology that desensitized them to everything but they also didn’t have all the knowledge that we do nor the science. Those with privilege got to be ignorant and brush things off. We see it all the time, women in plays without names, people of certain races being called names simply because they didn’t understand nor try to. 

Shakespeare probably didn’t think about equality as much as we discuss equality in his works because as a white man in Europe he didn’t have to, and you can see hints of that in the fact that most of the women in his plays are without names, like in Macbeth. While the female place in society might not have been a popular discussion we do know that the subject is female beauty. That subject is popular among sonnets and highly used by Shakespeare himself. 

Going back to the topic of his time discussing females in society, it likely wasn’t a popular subject mainly because they thought women weren’t as capable or as smart or even civil enough to be considered on their level. However some of the roles in Shakespeare’s plays that are of women begs the question of men’s awareness that women were capable of being equal, or maybe it was the writers, the artists that understood? The people who observe and get inspiration from the world’s workings around them. You can see it in The Roaring Girls by Molls behavior and lifestyles and how completely okay she is by the unconventional and nonconforming life she lives, as well as the way the men around her engage with her with their defensive and offended behavior as if they couldn’t believe her audacity. There is also a line in Boy My Greatness for the reason men play women’s roles, because as women they don’t know how they behave. 

None of this is to say that the convocations that we have about authors’ intentions and reasons behind their written works from that time period aren’t valid. All the convocations we have had in our medieval and renaissance literature have been important critical thinking knowledgeable convocations that help us be smarter and better with our own lives. If we can find and annotate old works of art like Shakespeare with these lenses then we can also do it in our day to day lives with more skill and practice. And it’s important to understand that discussing the flaws in our societies concepts is important and it is also important to know that while yes the concepts have changed some through time they were still there and the past had the same issues that we see in a better light in our present time. 

These discussions also help us as people understand others’ view points and how others, though reading the same thing, interpret things differently and pick up on things that you might have missed. These things are important and so is the fact that in class we practice how to engage in dialogue and not debate. These are great skills though the door for more convocations needs to open. We should be having more convocations and not just about race and gender roles or religion. Yes, each of these things are important but they are also very very highlighted everywhere and we should make room for other convocations because despite these things being important it is also important to discuss the different types of writing in different time periods, the differing ideas of artisans and the life history of the people whose work we are reading. Discussing things like authors’ history is important because you can get better ideas on where they draw their inspirations and you can contemplate what events of their lives led them to write or create certain works of theirs. Its good to sometimes take a step outside of the intensity that the lens of all currently fucked up concepts we have today to talk about the strangeness of these old bodies of work. Convocations like: are these popular thoughts of their time? Were these writers popular or seen as outcasts of society? Where was their social standing and if it wasn’t high how did they support themselves financially while writing these works? With what we know of the history of this time, was this a popular view or did they take a turn on the gossip mill after writing this? 

As much as the popular convocations are important it is also important to discuss other things within the literature that would help our understanding throughout all literature and through the craft of literature and how we interact with it and the real modern world as well. 

*This was something I learned in an Anthropology lecture at MSU last year. 

Also because I was so late to understand that this was an existing assignment I am aware that there are holes and I would be willing to fix it if it deeply affects my grade but for now this is what I am turning in thank you.