6th Biennial Chaucer
Celebration, Arizona State University, March 23, 2018
Reviewed by Chad
Crosson (ccrosson@berkeley.edu)
Organized and led by
one of Arizona State University’s own Chaucerians, Professor Richard Newhauser,
the 2018 6th Biennial ASU Chaucer Celebration emphasized the important and
necessary work of introducing a younger generation not only to the works
of Chaucer, but to the humanities more generally. I need not
belabor how critical it is at this moment to cultivate an appreciation and
understanding of what the humanities offer to a younger generation and to our
communities at large. The ever-shrinking job market and English departments
have been points of anxiety for some time now. Therefore, I was delighted to
see the auditorium mostly filled, not just with academics like myself, but a
host of fresh-faced high school students from the local communities - Newhauser
had extended the invitation to this year’s Chaucer Celebration to local public
high schools so that students with a developing interest in Chaucer and the
humanities might attend.
The morning thus
began appropriately with a reading by YA novelist Kim Zarins, who, with smiles
and encouragement, acknowledged these young students at the opening of her
reading. Zarins’ book, Sometimes We Tell
the Truth, offers a 21st-century retelling of the Canterbury Tales, which takes place (appropriately for that
morning’s younger audience) on a school bus during a field trip to Washington
D. C.; and the chapter Zarins selected to read revealed to me the knowledge and
interest she must have in her young readers. Indeed, if nothing else revealed
the extent to which Zarins understood her audience, the fact that she
transformed the Franklin’s Tale into
a rendition of Harry Potter fanfiction - narrated by a young student pilgrim -
did. I smiled, listening to her excerpt, remembering fellow writers from my own
undergraduate years and the attention they gave to the reading and writing of
Harry Potter fanfiction. And those familiar with that genre and the Franklin’s Tale would have been pleased
by Zarins’ choice to make potions instructor Severus Snape the “tregetour”
(illusionist) who agrees to help a young Aurelius win his love through
deception. Of course, this portrayal would not be complete without Snape’s
sneering words of warning that winning love in such a way does not typically
work as planned. Consequently, Zarins’ version of the tale reached its audience
with a thoughtful mixture of serious and morally complex teen romance, along
with a subtle and quirky humor that never allowed one to take the drama too
seriously. In short, she recreated for her audience how many might imagine that
Chaucer himself entertains - with concerns of human and moral significance, all
while not losing sight of the offbeat enjoyment this art might afford.
The second and final
presenter was Patience Agbabi, who has received wide recognition as a former Poet
Laureate of Canterbury, and who read from her latest book, Telling Tales, a poetic reimagining of Chaucer’s poems and
characters through the lens of contemporary genres. Agbabi wasted no time
hooking the attention of her audience by opening with no less of a gregarious
character than Harry Bailey himself - master of ceremonies - transforming his
bravado into her own masterful performance of London grime (a musical genre
influenced by hip hop, and composed in the parlance of contemporary East
London), in rhythm-filled, rhyming couplets, which I would like to imagine that
Chaucer himself would have particularly enjoyed.
From beginning to the
end of her readings, Agbabi had the enormous talent and ability to keep
everyone in keen anticipation of her next poem. In fact, I do not believe that
I have observed seen high school students so taken with a poetry reading. To
see them (perhaps unexpectedly) moved and inspired by poetry was its own treat.
But just as great of a treat was to witness the range of Agbabi’s poetic
retellings of Chaucer’s Tales,
retellings which spanned the world of rap / hip hop / grime, 1960s Soul, elegy / monody,
and dramatic monologue
(to name a handful); her book thus presents its own
modern miscellany of popular genres.
I would also like to
take a moment to appreciate the way Agbabi handled material from what may be
considered Chaucer’s darker work, namely, the Prioress’s Tale - subject matter that many would not have blamed
her for leaving out. However, Agbabi took a tale of anti-semitism - with the
murder of a Christian schoolboy in a Jewish ghetto - and created a darkly
moving poem based on true events, in which a young, black Londoner, murdered on
the streets near his home, speaks through her poem. Silence permeated the
auditorium as we listened to the voice of a dead youth offering a last appeal
of love and farewell to his mother. Such a poem, of course, is timely for a
young American audience beset by gun violence, and it became all the more
apparent the way in which the “medieval” can be an excellent tool to explore
contemporary socio-political issues. Yet Agbabi did not allow her audience to
remain in one emotional or intellectual space for long, as she soon
transitioned to both a humorous and meditative portrayal of the Wife of Bath,
placing her in Nigeria, the prior home of Agbabi’s own parents. It was
refreshing to hear the Wife live again and loom large in an entirely new
cultural context, and speaking for a new female experience. Indeed, this
retelling reminded me how important it is that we continue hearing from the
Wife of Bath, especially as another generation of feminists struggles to be
heard.
All this brings me to
a larger consideration of the value of medieval studies and medievalism to a
contemporary culture now more than ever in need of self-reflection. Without
making it explicit, the readings that morning explored the potential of
medievalism to capture imaginations and thereby potentially capture support for
both medieval studies and the humanities; retelling Chaucer allows one to touch
directly on contemporary issues through narrative rather than critical essays,
thereby reaching a more diverse audience. As Carolyn Dinshaw has so
insightfully argued, the idea of multiple temporalities co-existing allows for
one to provide commentary (or social critique) on the other - as we may also
recognize how the “medieval” has perennially created such opportunities:
whether in thinking about torture (e.g., “getting medieval”) or in creating
fantasy (e.g., Tolkien-based films) that showcases a fictionalized medieval
world that distances the present (real) life, even as it still reflects that
life. Interpreting the present through the past and the past through the
present is one hallmark of medieval writing, as Dinshaw astutely observes
regarding Sir John Mandeville, who “for the most part...interprets the others
that he encounters in his eastward travels as versions of himself and his own
culture,” creating an “asynchronous now.”[1]
Likewise, today’s recreated “medieval” (exemplified by these readings) provides
the fictional occasion to think about current events or to offer apparent modes
of escapism that never really escape the present. Put another way, these
readings suggested how the medieval has become not just a recreated past but an
alternative space, one which has the capacity to defamiliarize the contemporary
culture and philosophy introduced to that space. The question that naturally
arises is, by defamiliarizing (or perhaps re-familiarizing) the present through
the past, might we be better able to reflect on our current times?
Such ideas of
multiple temporalities and an “asynchronous now” were difficult to miss at this
gathering of ASU’s Biennial Chaucer Celebration. Indeed, what better
demonstration of how temporalities meet than by witnessing two contemporary
authors render Chaucer for an audience composed largely of high school
students, who are themselves potentially fans of Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, and all the conceptions and
misconceptions those works present of medieval temporality. Zarins and Agbabi
memorably revealed the many ways in which these temporalities might crossover:
whether through contemporary fanfiction, based on both Chaucer and the
fictionalized “medieval” of Harry Potter, and spoken by youthful narrators; or
through various geographical spaces and musical genres that reinvigorate the
Canterbury pilgrims through contemporary and multicultural voices. In all,
Newhauser, Zarins, and Agbabi are to be commended on multiple fronts, not only
for introducing Chaucer’s work to a new generation and cultural context, but
also for demonstrating so immediately how Chaucer (and the “medieval”) still
speaks to the social, political, post-colonial, and racial experiences of our
times. Regardless of the academic interests we may have in fictional
reimaginings and youthful retellings of the Tales,
or representations of Harry Bailey as a suave hip hop artist with a charming
swagger, I left these readings satisfied at observing a younger generation
taken in by the vivacious and edifying spirit of Chaucer’s tales and poetry -
and isn’t that really a good thing for everyone?
Dinshaw, “All
Kinds of Time,” Studies in the Age of
Chaucer (2013), 3-25, at 10.
