READING REBELLIONS

If it isn’t already abundantly clear, I’m very intimidated by the lack of confidence that I have in any of the work that I’ve done. Throughout this whole process, I was somehow both simultaneously sure of myself and constantly questioning everything that I was doing. I worried that I was making too many logical leaps and forcing the letters to fit a narrative I had concocted in my head before I even read them. None of what I was doing was giving me the feeling I was used to having when it comes to this sort of analytical work—there was no satisfaction when I finished writing a paragraph, no sense of wonder that tends to accompany me learning new information and being able to put the puzzle pieces together. Was I doing something wrong? 

 

Maybe not, even though it sure felt like that at times. Maybe what I’ve just stumbled into is what academic scholarship is. In my head it feels like I’m making some huge mistake whenever I type up an analysis I don’t totally vibe with, but perhaps the nature of academic writing is that it reads as far more confident than the author felt while writing it. I’ve read paper after paper and book after book while working on this project, and each author asserts their points and beliefs with surety and precision. They write as if they know, with great certainty, that they are correct, and like they have earned the right to be the sole authority on their chosen topic. But I’ve learned through this project that that isn’t necessarily true.  

 

Scholars cannot make any claim or argue for a particular interpretation without a base level of confidence. It’s impossible to do so without one. However, the result of that isn’t them trying to lay claim to the title of being the one to finally get it right. No, the result is that they have added something to the conversation, and it is the relationship between multiple works by multiple authors that makes the assertions made in any one piece of writing meaningful. Their confidence emerges from the overlap and disagreement between their work and the work of other academics. It’s not up to any one individual to be  the omnipotent God on a particular historical topic. That’s just not possible. 

 

This is a far cry from how I felt when I first started this project, when I felt like in order for my writing to be meaningful in medieval scholarship, I had to be sure that I got it right, that what I was saying was absolutely correct. If I was going to embark on this project, I absolutely could not get it wrong, because if I did, then all of my work would be for naught. 

 

I don’t feel that way now, nor do I think that I have to be the sole authority on the revolt. Despite the uncertainties that I felt while analyzing the letters, I am confident in my work. I believe in the analysis that I have done, but I also invite the ways in which it contradicts the beliefs of other people.

 

The letters did something entirely unique. They allowed the rebels to claim power that had been historically denied to them; enabled them to connect with a literary character in a whole new way, and use him to support their cause; and scheme amongst themselves. The rebels could finally speak for themselves and write their own names into history.  

 

So did I get it right? Well, who’s to say? I’m not sure that I was ever going to ‘get it right,’ in the first place, because the only people who could truly understand the letters and everything that they were trying to do were the authors themselves. And maybe they didn’t even get it right, because once the letters were sent out into the world, interpretation and understanding was up to the readers.