An introduction of sorts…

This past summer I spent most of the time waist-deep in a reading list comprised entirely of medieval and early modern texts. From Beowulf to Haywood, the most “modern” text I consumed was published in 1764. A good heft of my academic labor was translating Middle English texts. I spent so much time pouring over the translations that the language began to seep into my daily life. Cedar, my dear sweet pup, was subjected to being called ‘min tosweten dogge’ and my partner ‘min dereling’. Thine(s), thou(s), tis(s) and ye(s) slipped easily into conversational sentences, and in fact come August I had a few dreams in Middle English.

Things had gone too far. Yes, of my own volition did I study medieval literature, but holy heck my brain needed a change of scenery. ENG 525 Cybernetic Fiction was meant to bring that relief. The course readings boasted authors that *gasp* were still alive! This was my chance to have a full academic pallet cleanser. I would be reading material that I believed would be so hyper-different than my normal reading log. Post-modern. The word screamed THE TOTAL OPPOSITE FROM ANYTHING YOU REGULARLY STUDY. Gravity’s Rainbow a postmodern novel. It was sleek, it was exciting, it promised a rocket blast projection away from the past, it…has a ton of medieval tropes in it?!

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Just when I thought I was leaving the medieval world behind  for a few weeks it jumps out from behind the covers of the novel, slaps me in the face with a whipped cream pie, and yells

“Did you miss me sucker?!”

 

!!!WARNING YOU ARE APPROACHING A COLOSSUS OF QUESTIONS!!!

 So, what does this mean? What do I, or anyone else for that matter, do with this realization?

Am I the medievalist version of Slothrop, paranoid and seeing entities of (medieval) power everywhere I look? Or perhaps this speaks to something larger…

 The term “postmodern” suggests a moving beyond a time in human history and consigning whatever existed in that “modern” thing to the backlog of history, yet why are history’s ghost creeping back into texts that strive to be so modern it is “post” it?

Again, lots of questions, and not a lot of answers. This is not a paper. I do not purport to construct a thesis driven, hard-lined essay that leaves anyone with definitive answers. Truthfully, I am still attempting to make sense of why each post-modern text assigned for this class was dripping with the medieval. So, to reiterate: this is not an Essay. Instead, it shall be dubbed an Exploration. It is an Exploration because its a reasonable prediction to state that this academic endeavor will result in more questions than answers. the scholarship required to explore this novel demands less “research on” Gravity’s Rainbow and more a “picking at” Gravity’s Rainbow. 

 

The following sections of this project should be viewed and treated in the vein of the other encyclopedic companion texts surrounding Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

The novel is often referred to as encyclopedic, but also requires an encyclopedia itself in order to fully access the text. Through this Exploration I aim to join the other brave souls who “picked at” the novel in attempts to tamp down the multiplicities of this novel. The following sections are intended to be additional entries to companion works such as Steven Weisenburger’s A Companion to Gravity’s Rainbow, and the Pynchon Wiki. I view these sections as my own encyclopedia entries further explaining the medieval and early modern tropes found in the novel. 

 

Goals of this Exploration:

  • Examine where the old and the new (medieval/early modern and postmodern) meet and how they exist together in the novel
  • Flush out the overt (well overt to me at least)  medieval literary tropes and philosophies
  • Create a space for contemporary readers to ruminate on their connection with the past
  • Create a pleat in the fabric of time 
  • Ask lots more questions

Further Questions to Consider : 

  • Why does a novel that aims to surpass modernity overtly include literary tropes of times long past?
  •  Is this a reverting back onto /into something of the past?
  • Or is this evidence that humanity cannot escape this era? Even though we believe we have?
    • If that’s true, what does that mean?
  • Is it a pendulum or a wheel?