A Medieval Approach to Modernity

One good book leads to another, and another, and another, like a bus tour, and along the way you note places to come back to. I’ve bought C. S. Lewis’s Allegory of Love, after searching for a copy for less than fifty dollars over the past several years. I was quite anxious to read the out of print book. (Incidentally, I don’t know why it is out of print since it is often referred to by contemporary essayists. In medieval studies the book from 1936 is an important reference.) The book is a history of medieval literature, specifically works on the subject of courtly love in the form of allegory. Within the bibliography Lewis reviews (more than critiques) the central works of The Romance of the Rose, Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida, and Spenser’s Faery Queene.

Reading this book of literary criticism prompted me to search for many titles of medieval works referred to. I am extremely happy that many of the works, in their entirety, are available online at Luminarium.org, Project Gutenberg, and TEAMS Middle English Texts. I no longer must resort to checking out large anthologies that only offer extracts. I am reading John Lydgate’s poetry (an author hardly known and usually categorized as one of a Chaucerian school, but who produced twice as much as his idol). He models himself after Chaucer, but he lacks his predecessor’s originality and diversity. His work is enjoyable, however, especially for expressing the courtly ideal of love. I am also reading The Romance of the Rose, which, as I read more commentaries, was a very influential book during the medieval period.

I must have a subject to the essay, besides a little criticism. I need to have something of an issue, don’t I? The one that comes to mind first is one of self-analysis, one to answer if I hope to have any success in the blogosphere: why read medieval literature?

While I have said in the past that I am an anachronism, not at all modern in thought or lifestyle, there is the exception of the computer and internet that I use daily. With the spread of technology comes the spread of information, which is more accessible than ever before. With this information we have the wider diversity of cultures to learn from, and we may customize our lifestyles. We are not limited to the culture that is common around us, except for those that choose to prohibit the technology. You are able to study religions you had little access to before the information revolution; you can study other countries and could even plan down to the details of moving there; you can complete college courses at home; you can correspond with people around the world easier than ever.

My point in all this is you can choose your lifestyle, or what I would call your own culture. I have built something of a culture of my own in my home. If I can choose my lifestyle from all the cultures I can learn of, without the limitations of space, (for instance, I can love English culture as much as American without living there), why limit myself in time? The spread of information includes a great treasure of history. With all that history offers, why must I be modern? This is why I am a Conservative. It’s not that I necessarily want to prevent change, but change for change’s sake is not a good reason. The phrase ‘change is good’ can only be proven after it is the past. I think the desire of people, en masse, for something novel is juvenile.

So I study history, so I read literature of past times, for good ideas to build my lifestyle, my own culture. Here are a few ideas I have recently discovered that I want to include.

“Be courteous and approachable, speaking gently and reasonably to high and low alike, and when you go along the streets, be sure to make it your habit to be the first to greet other people. And if someone should greet you first, do not remain dumb, but take care to return the greeting at once, and without delay. Next, be sure never to use rude words or coarse expressions: your mouth should never be opened to pronounce the name of anything base.”
Guillame de Lorris. The Romance of the Rose. (New York: Oxford University Press 1994) 32-33.

It would be foolish of me to dispel wisdom given from the past, or to think it wise only for one culture, one situation, one time. If it was it would have been only a novel thought.