Crying alone in my living room is not how I typically expect to interact with an assigned reading for a class. (Unless I am crying because I'm so stressed :) But Faust's book had an extreme emotional impact on me. As academics and historians, we often remove emotion. We talk about statistics and facts. We don't think about the raw humanity that was and is on the ground. Faust gives facts that stir emotion. So my question: Is it inappropriate to include emotion in historical scholarship or are we doing history an injustice if we exclude emotion?
My Triumph lasted till the Drums
Had left the Dead alone
And then I dropped my Victory
and chastened stole along
To where the finished Faces
Conclusion turned on me
And then I hated Glory
And wished myself were They.
...
A Bayonet's contrition
Is nothing to the Dead
Battle-Pieces by Melville
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