Since the advent of The Post-Ironic Dictatorship Of The Post-Proletariat in the USA, there’s been a certain resurgence of interest in—and a renewed appreciation of the eternal timeliness and relevance of—the allegorical, the apocalyptic, and active women; writers, makers, and shapers. It’s not all about The Handmaid’s Tale; I have a sense that Christine de Pizan may be having a resurgence. Renaissance. Renovation. Consider this a tip-off on trend-spotting, cool-hunting, and innovation. (Also, on these subjects, if you’re looking for something else to read, may I recommend William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and Zero History).

Anyway. I’ll be reposting a bunch of stuff from recent Twitter in a next blog post on here. Much will be from today: being the feast day of Joan of Arc, burned at the stake in Rouen on this day in 1431, and whose first biography (in her lifetime, in 1429) was by Christine. 

It was also Christine’s last known work; and I happen to be fond of “last known works” and associations of being the work that ends someone, or when they feel ended, or in some way—be that positive or negative—unable to write again. We need more work on traumatic writing: by that I mean not just on the writing of trauma, whose witnessing and commemoration always has been and always will continue to be a human creative imperative, as long as there are humans. (Or other larger category of sentient intelligent sensitive beings; and such remembrance is crucial to culture, it’s the beating heart that provides the beat for the continuation across deaths, generations, time.) Traumatic writing: writing that’s painful and ends a person; from which some come back, some come back changed, some disappear, some go to earth, take root, vegetate, shift into herboriser. 

See also: Guilhem de Peitieus, Pos de chantar m’es pres talen and Montaigne’s Essais.

Further next posts will continue another topical thread, Make Philology Great Again; see for example here.