i have to carefully avoid thinking too hard about any time period before like the 1900s because i start thinking about all the dead babies and i fucking lose it
like!!!! i trully cannot countenance any argument that the past was better when nearly HALF of all young children died.
whenever I wonder about why humanity started getting so much nicer in the second half of the 20th century I conclude that it may be related to the fact that we weren’t constantly surrounded by tiny skeletons.
yeah.
the messed up thing is that I’ve heard literal history teachers (and my own parents) say that the people of the past were used to it and that it didn’t have as big an effect on them as it would have had on us…which is absolutely untrue and so, so freaking dehumanizing - see the 14th century poem ‘Pearl’, in which a father mourns the loss of his infant daughter, with palpable pain
Since in that spot it slipped from me
I wait, and wish, and oft complain;
Once it would bid my sorrow flee,
And my fair fortune turn again;
It wounds my heart now ceaselessly,
And burns my breast with bitter pain.
Yet never so sweet a song may be
As, this still hour, steals through my brain,
While verity I muse in vain
How clay should her bright beauty clot;
O Earth! a brave gem thou dost stain,
My own pearl, precious, without spot!
I think…that some people have difficulty comprehending the sheer scale of death in the past and so, choose to believe that the ones experiencing it were different from them
oh man, Pearl fucked me up so bad when I first read it in university. We know nothing about the Pearl poet (who also wrote Gawain and the Green Knight, plus two other poems, called Patience and Cleanness), though we have four of their poems, and based on the vivid language and the subjects of the poems it’s tempting to infer things about the poet’s life. and I have a really really hard time imagning the Pearl poet was not a parent, bc Pearl is this beautifully wrought poem, with intricate alliteration and repetition and a really thoughtful exploration of the theology that is supposed to comfort us (was supposed to comfort them) when contemplating the death of someone beloved–and at the end of the poem, in this vision where the father is beholding his dead daughter in the paradise of the New Jerusalem in heaven, when she turns to go he can’t help but dive into the stream that separates them, whereupon he suddenly wakes and finds himself alone.
Sometimes the values of the past are a bit strange to us and we have trouble imagining ourselves caring about the things they care about, and sometimes the common bond of humanity shines through in medieval or ancient literature so bright that it astounds you. Pearl definitely belongs in the latter category for me.
There is in fact a whole ass book called A Good Time to Be Born focusing on how we culturally turned on child mortality and brought it way the fuck down.
One of the key points in that book is actually taking a look at the contention that people in the past were just “used to it” and didn’t experience the death of a child as traumatic in the same way we would. The author spends considerable time pointing out that they absolutely fucking did, even when just about everyone had dead children or siblings–it’s just that they thought there wasn’t anything that could be done about it.
The process of solving childhood mortality, then, was a process of figuring out what could be done about it, and then figuring out how to do it. The knock on effects in terms of reducing the trauma and therefore a bunch of other shitty behaviors in society are frankly amazing.
There is a poem by Zonas, from the first century BCE, (trans. by Brooks Haxton here) which is a father writing on the death of his child, which consistently makes me cry.
Charon,
You who pull the oars, who meet the dead, who leave them at the other bank, and glide alone across the reedy marsh, please take my boy’s hand as he climbs into the dark hull. Look. The sandals trip him, and you see, he is afraid to step there barefoot.
As much as this entry destroyed me emotionally, especially as a parent, I realized it showed a perfect Rule of Three of the courage of the people of Transylvania.
1) The woman who gave Jon her crucifix to wear - she couldn’t go with him to the castle, but she was willing to offer what protection she had.
2) The man who tried to keep Jon from his coach- this was more direct action, but when faced by the Count (or his alleged “associate”), couldn’t fight back out of fear. Sometimes, all you can do is just try to gum up the works and buy some time.
3) The woman at the gate in today’s entry- what guts! She knew full well what the Count and his brides were, and she still was pounding on the door of the castle to the bitter end, praying for the slimmest possibility that her kid was still alive.
There’s a pretty substantial vein of discontent and resistance among the Transylvanian people against Dracula, and I wish modern adaptations did more with that.
Don't give up. Unless you have to for a little while. Then don't panic. CONTAINS: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Critical Role, History, Current Affairs, Space, Cats, and Etc. Adult.
