Work Text:
[clunking sound]
As we begin our study of late twentieth and early twenty-first-century western culture, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that fiction, while false, can also provide insight into the values and world of the people who created and consumed it. We learn as much about ancient Sumeria by reading Gilgamesh as we do by digging up old pots, and so it is with this time period, though we have a bit more in the way of pots, thanks to their use of plastics, and a bit less in the way of poetry, thanks to their dependence on electronic storage.
Yes, as far as we can tell they really did believe electronic storage was stable. When we combine the problem of electromagnetic pulses with the shift from cottonrag to the cheaper but more acidic wood pulp paper in publishing, well, there simply aren’t a lot of books to study, but we do what we can. We’re very fortunate that a collection of archivists in the early twenty-first century recognized the dangers and began to hand-bind the most important literary works of the age using better paper, thus preserving them for posterity.
Today we’re going to look at three different texts, all of which you should have copies of, and start to talk about how we can use these stories to triangulate the values and concerns of their era. A lot of this material may be more explicit than modern sensibilities deem appropriate, and I want to remind you that in signing up for this course you noted that you understood much of the content has the possibility to offend. This was a different time, and these people had different values, but I understand completely if you would like to bow out now. There will not be any academic penalty if you decide these “dead doves” are just too much. [light laugh] I certainly don’t bring my research up at Christmas dinner, and Monsignor Prentiss keeps telling me if I were anyone else, he’d worry about my soul.
[rustling sound as several people get up and leave the lecture hall]
Anyone else? No? Excellent. Let us proceed. I’m going to pull up a quick slide here of the opening of our first text, Bella Swan Pegs Satan.
This is one of the better-preserved works of the period. We have five extant copies, speaking to both its popularity and literary importance. Before we start our analysis, I’ll read the first few sentences aloud to make sure we’ve all got the feel of it.
Bella Swan was the most beautiful girl who ever lived and she had really nice clothes. She had a white sequined dress that had been trending online because whenever she wanted something, her mother got it for her, even if it was really expensive and what was she going to wear it for. She wore it to school, that’s what, and everyone said, Bella you are the most beautiful and I love your dress, and she said thank you because she wasn’t only beautiful, she was also kind too. And every single boy in school wanted her but she only had eyes for the boy with the black leather jacket who was in her human sexuality class. She sat next to him in her glittering white dress and said, Hey.
Okay, let’s step back and take a look at some of the symbolism here. Can anyone spot the most obvious pairing? You, in the third row?
[muffled answer]
Exactly. The white dress on our heroine versus the black jacket on the boy who – naturally – turns out to be Satan. She’s depicted as pure and we’re explicitly told that she is beautiful and kind, but what do we make of her name? Anyone? No? Bella of course simply reinforces her beauty, but let’s take a look at our second slide, which is just a listing of short stories we have in another text from that era that was considered important enough to archive.
- Bella Swan/Zuko (bdsm). Don’t Like, Don’t Read.
- Five Times Bella Swan Kissed A Girl and the One Time She Didn’t
- I Fucking Hate Isabella Swan and Here’s Why
As we can see, Bella Swan appears in multiple tales and we have to ask ourselves why. What folkloric importance does she have that writers returned to her again and again? I think the key lies in not just her beauty, but the reference to swans. Bella is a callback to Greek mythology – we’ll see next week that reimagining the ancient mythologies was as popular in this era as it is in our own – and she is important because she is both Leda and the Swan. She is the raped and the rapist. She is the ouroboros forever devouring and defiling herself.
Well, later in the story she devours Satan. There’s the symbolic read and there’s the literal read, of course. Yes?
[muffled question]
Yes, they appear to have done human sexuality classes at school rather than at church. We see multiple references to ‘sex ed’ in works from the period, though, of course, we assume much of the content is humorous exaggeration for the purposes of the narrative.
[muffled question]
No, they didn’t have useful reproductive technology at the time. Babies were conceived using penis-in-vagina sex.
[muffled comment followed by laughter]
Let’s not refer to people in the past as “gross” if you don’t mind. They didn’t have any other options, and given their myriad limitations, we cannot and should not hold them to our standards for morality or behavior. Any more questions or childish comments? No? Okay, then let’s move on and look at another passage from our text.
I am the devil, he said, and Bella said, What, no really? Get out. And he said, no. The actual devil, she asked. With horns and flames and a tail? Can I see the tail? Is it like Cardan’s? He crossed his arms and said crossly, No, it is not like Cardan’s. He is made up and I am real.
One of the real charms of this work is the stylistic simplicity. Quite a few major writers of this era rejected norms of punctuation – some of you have probably read the Cormac McCarthy fragments – and we see that here in the lack of quotation marks. Does anyone have any questions about this? No problems understanding the work? Don’t be embarrassed to speak up. No? Good.
Let’s move on to the third passage, and then we can dive into to a serious examination of why this work was important enough that multiple copies were saved, and what it tells us about the people who wrote it. ‘Grossness’ aside, we can see the universal human experience in their art. Are we ready to go?
I am bad, the devil insisted. He tossed his dark curls out of his limpid dark orbs, which sparkled in the candlelight and he thrust out his full, lush lower lip. He looked hot. Oh, I know, laughed Bella. She pulled out the strap-on she bought online. That’s why you have to be punished. Bend over, Satan. Satan shuddered with anticipation and did what she told him.
[long, awkward pause]
So. I think we all know now why this course comes with content warnings and an age restriction, but let’s step away from the more lurid elements of the scene before us and consider what the author of this book – a book written in the Death Ages! A time known for its primitive sexuality, indifference to human life, and the widespread adoption of atheism – is setting up for–
[mumbled comment]
Yes? Of course those two things were connected. It is only with the glory of God in our hearts that we can truly appreciate the miracle of life. The bleakness of that era in history isn’t up for debate, and their turning away from God was what led them to centuries of plague and war and natural disasters. But what we’re here to do is discuss the literature of the period, and if you can’t do that with maturity and self-control, you are welcome to leave.
[pause]
As I was saying, let’s look at what the author of this text is setting up for us. The author isn’t trying to suggest that Satan is a metaphor or that morality is complex. No! Satan exists. We’re told this multiple times! And there is no question that he is bad. He tells us he’s bad, and Bella agrees. This would have been a remarkable, brave thing to assert in the early twenty-first century. And why do we think that is? Anyone? Everyone was so eager to mutter things under their breath at the textual evidence of Death Ages pegging, but now everyone seems fascinated by their notes. I know it can be uncomfortable to discover that people in the past were still people even if they had to have PIV sex to reproduce, but, yes, your great-great-great and so on grandmothers weren’t quite as backwards as you might think, even if they did subscribe to some false beliefs.
Now, what makes the assertion of Satan as a real being so important here is that if Satan exists, who else must exist?
[mumbled answer]
That’s right, thank you for answering Marya. Someone is paying attention. Thank you. God. The answer to what must exist is God. We cannot have a cosmos with only the darkness. The existence of ultimate evil implies the existence of ultimate good, and while the text doesn’t directly talk to us about God the way modern stories would, that is because the author is expecting you to be able to read between the lines. To draw inferences. The curtains are not just blue! They mean something! And what does Bella – our swan, our devourer of worlds – do when she meets Satan?
[pause]
What does Zeus do when he meets Leda? What does the swan do?
[mumbled answer]
That’s right! He, she, both of them have sex with the object of their desire. They assault. They attack. They rape and ravish and destroy. And who is Bella destroying via this symbolic, sexualized assault? Satan! She bends Satan over and takes him, and while we won’t be using class time to analyze the fairly lengthy passages detailing their sexual relationship, you can read the whole of it in pages 67-394 of your textbook. What’s important to note is that this is a profoundly moral work hiding in the depths of the past, written in an era where the author risked being mocked and ostracized for her beliefs. She could have been denied employment, or housing. She might have had trouble finding a partner. And yet, did that keep her from digging into the moral universe as she understood it? It did not.
And what does that tell us about the author, and about all great art?
[pause]
It tells us that faith will be embedded in all things, and that even though we tend to see this era as one of unremitting ignorance, the greatest of art, the art that gets preserved, is the art that speaks to endless, enduring truths. Bella Swan Pegs Satan is a brave, important work by an author going against the prevailing ethos of her own time. In many ways, it foreshadows the tremendous literary output that was to begin in the twenty-fourth century.
[audible exhale]
Okay, we’ll turn the recording off for our discussion – no need to worry Monsignor Prentiss will target you for any question you ask – but first let’s take a quick break. Everyone get some water. This would be a good time to ask me any questions about the syllabus. We’ll start up again with our discussion in about five minutes and then turn the recording back on when I begin to address the questions of authorship. Paul, would you turn that off?
[clunking sound]
[clunking sound]
Okay, so we’re back on again. Tip of my hat to Paul, our technician, who will be getting this class onto the portal for us. Now that we’ve taken a look at our first text of the semester, let’s delve into questions of authorship. It should surprise no one that the identity of the Bella Pegging Author remains unknown. She wrote using a pseudonym, presumably because it wasn’t safe to use her real name at the time and –
[muffled question]
Yes, we are very fortunate that in the modern world artists don’t need to worry about things like privacy. We’ve thrown off the shackles of the past. Anyway, as I was saying, the author used a pseudonym and we’re fairly sure we know what it was because four of the five copies of the text attribute the work to the same author. I’m going to pull up a slide here.
orpheus_account
Any thoughts?
[muffled answer]
Yes. Her name very much clarifies that she was familiar with Greek mythology. Exactly. Very good observation. We’ve also got a personal note she wrote that is appended to two of the texts that gives us a little biographical information about her, and I’ll bring that up.
authors note! I’m so sorry this took seven years to finish but I am so so so so so so so so glad you all hung in there. I can’t believe I started this in high school and I’m about to graduate with my computer science degree! Craziness! My dark!Bella girlies, you know who you are! I love you! Kisses to my beta readers! I’m going to get an epilogue up in the next week or two! Thank you thank you thank you!
It’s worth noting before we go on that we have no evidence of an epilogue anywhere, nor is there any reference to it in other texts. One of the many things lost in the digital wars. We’ve never been able to learn more about her, and this may be as fictional as the story itself, but I like to think that the Bella Pegging Author did spend seven years working on this masterpiece, and that she –
[alarm sounds]
Oh, drat. I guess that’s it for today. Everyone, get your breathing apparatus on. The nearest shelter is down the hall to the left right by Father Auerbach’s office. I’ll get the rest of the material up on the portal and next week we’ll be talking about another one of the great mythological works from the Death Ages, and I think you’ll spot a call back to a character referenced in this week’s text, a work whose title has been lost but which we refer to as Cruel Prince Ass Eating 27.
[alarm sounds and continues to sound]
Damn it.
[clunking sound]