tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post5562910422918945812..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Waste Studies and Chaucer's Fecopoetics: A New Paradigm for Literary AnalysisCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-81456930622226091902008-10-29T14:04:00.000-04:002008-10-29T14:04:00.000-04:00I do think a fart is something other than shit. I...I do think a fart is something other than shit. It isn't material for one, despite it flying "As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,/ That with the strook [absolon] was almoost yblent" (I.3807-8). It is, after all, only a simile of something material but is not material in itself. Chaucer DOES talk "shit," Jeffrey, as you say. There IS materiality in the excrement the little clergeon is dumped into and the privy into which May puts her letter. A fart is only an echo of this materiality. <BR/><BR/>As I envision it, waste studies does not deal with signs or signifieds; it deals with materiality and the outcomes of that materiality. Shit is the opposite of no real consequences; it is real. <BR/><BR/>There is an ethical dimension to defecating; waste studies calls our attention to ecological matters. Reflecting on the parallel between the way we view nature and the way we view society, culture, and human beings, Michael Bell has suggested that “[O]ur repudiation of the grotesque [Bakhtin’s lower bodily stratum] may be one of the most powerful cultural forces behind the ecological degradation of the planet.” Bell goes on to suggest that ecological decline is linked to distinctions elites feel compelled to set up with inferiors, creating boundaries and privatizing their selves from the material world. The demonization and privitization of excrement can limit us and harm our planet. It is very simple: we should deal with our own shit, both figuratively and literally. That is the only ethical, moral, and, indeed, logical course. <BR/><BR/>And that's where those amazing passages you cite, Ken, come in: yes, I couldn't agree more. Gerasim is being "loving" by tending to Illych.<BR/><BR/>Which brings us back to the fart. I remember when I taught English in Japan for a year, our yoga teacher told us that is was perfectly natural to fart while posing since you relax. It was a lesson, now that I look back on it, on affinity. A compassionate insight. So that's how I see the fart and shit being linked, as a sign of our "elective affinities." But the material of shit puts it into a different league.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-83100436827440308712008-10-23T21:21:00.000-04:002008-10-23T21:21:00.000-04:00Susan Morrison’s observation at the end of her pap...Susan Morrison’s observation at the end of her paper <BR/><BR/><I>We need to think about affinity, webs, connectivity. We coalesce not through identity, which leads only to fragmentation, but through affinity. Excrement provides us with a reason for acknowledging affinity among all people, one we normally deny. Waste is the great leveller, linking us all through elective affinities.</I><BR/><BR/>reminds me of the section in Tolstoy’s <I>The Death of Ivan Illych</I> where the servant Gerasim lovingly cares for Illych. The passage is introduced with Ivan needing help to stand after using the commode:<BR/><BR/><I>For his excretions also special arrangements had to be made, and this was a torment to him every time -- a torment from the uncleanliness, the unseemliness, and the smell, and from knowing that another person had to take part in it.<BR/><BR/> But just through his most unpleasant matter, Ivan Ilych obtained comfort. Gerasim, the butler's young assistant, always came in to carry the things out. Gerasim was a clean, fresh peasant lad, grown stout on town food and always cheerful and bright. At first the sight of him, in his clean Russian peasant costume, engaged on that disgusting task embarrassed Ivan Ilych.</I><BR/><BR/>Illych and Gerasim couldn’t be more separate; their relationship is controlled by class, age, health, education, wealth and status. In responding to Illych’s “excretions”, however, they become equal, even loving (Morrison’s “leveler”)<BR/><BR/>At the end of the incident, Tolstoy links them as equals in time. What is done today for Illych will be done tomorrow for Gerasim:<BR/><BR/><I>Only Gerasim recognized it and pitied him. And so Ivan Ilych felt at ease only with him. He felt comforted when Gerasim supported his legs (sometimes all night long) and refused to go to bed, saying: "Don't you worry, Ivan Ilych. I'll get sleep enough later on," or when he suddenly became familiar and exclaimed: "If you weren't sick it would be another matter, but as it is, why should I grudge a little trouble?" Gerasim alone did not lie; everything showed that he alone understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them, but simply felt sorry for his emaciated and enfeebled master. Once when Ivan Ilych was sending him away he even said straight out:<BR/>"We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?" -- expressing the fact that he did not think his work burdensome, because he was doing it for a dying man and hoped someone would do the same for him when his time came.</I>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-22340437737397720052008-10-23T19:55:00.000-04:002008-10-23T19:55:00.000-04:00I am dying to spend some time with this, because i...I am dying to spend some time with this, because it is so rich, so fertile (like manure ... ugh the puns will keep on coming) but for the time being I will ask a question from memory, mostly, so pardon me if I get the quotes wrong:<BR/><BR/>(1) Is a fart something of a different order than shit, and not amenable to a fecopoetics in the same way? I ask this because in Chaucer farts are almost characters, with a life of their own ... and Peter Travis and Valerie Allen have so well explored the resonance of the fart in ways that seem so different from your fecopoetics.<BR/><BR/>(2) Does Chaucer talk shit? I know, there is the turd that the Pardoner's balls will be enshrined in, as you cite and the Host threatens. There is the smear of fundement that is upon the Pardoner's breeches, according to the Host. There is the "drasty" (feculent) rhyming that Chaucer offers as Chaucer-the-pilgrim in Thopas. There is the Parson, who is shitless (not "A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep). I guess what I'm asking is, can you say more about the materiality of Chaucerian excrement, over and against the fart, which has no such substance?Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-17159078772250211032008-10-23T16:38:00.000-04:002008-10-23T16:38:00.000-04:00I'm glad you brought up Zizek. Elsewhere he discu...I'm glad you brought up Zizek. Elsewhere he discusses how the separation of the useless [waste] from the useful is inherent in Western culture. God created order out of what was void and formless. See The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters. London: Verso, 1996, p. 33. Also, Serrano actually has a lovely photo in the same exhibit called "Medieval Shit." I asked about why he gave that particular title, and his liaison guessed it was because it was particularly "brutal" (thereby perpetuating stereotypes about the Middle Ages?).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-80325648560993037792008-10-23T10:59:00.000-04:002008-10-23T10:59:00.000-04:00Adam: thanks for the reference to the Zizek chapte...Adam: thanks for the reference to the Zizek chapter, which I am sure Susan, especially, will appreciate. I have not read that book [am currently bogged down in "The Parallax View," actually]. And do you know hard it is to find just the right illustration of shit? Actually, at the SEMA conference, Susan brought with her the catalogue from Serrano's latest exhibit on, yes, shit. I thought "heroic shit" was appropriate for a medievalist blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-85566372075704768452008-10-23T10:33:00.000-04:002008-10-23T10:33:00.000-04:00This is very interesting, Eileen (and that's one r...This is very interesting, Eileen (and that's one remarkably aesthetic photograph of shit you've posted at the top there). There's also a good deal of stuff about this in Zizek, of course, particularly the second section of his <I>On Belief</I> book, titled 'Why You <I>Should</I> Give a Shit!' Not especially medieval, but interesting on the whole 'I shit therefore I am' angle.Rachel Robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09514816247989239714noreply@blogger.com