RUTHFULLY YOURS

Over the past decade, universities have slapped ‘trigger warnings’ on everything from children’s books to entire fields of law. They have warned archaeology students about bones, theology students about the crucifixion and forensic-science students about dead bodies. In 2022, it was reported that over 1,000 books on university reading lists – including classic works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare – warned students about everything from racism and sexism to murder and suicide. Now, The Canterbury Tales can be added to this list of shame.

The Mail on Sunday reported at the weekend that the University of Nottingham is warning students that Geoffrey Chaucer’s epic poem contains ‘expressions of Christian faith’. The Canterbury Tales – as anyone with even a passing knowledge of literature knows – follows a group of pilgrims as they entertain each other with stories on their way to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. In other words, the clue to this being an ‘expression of Christian faith’ is right there in the title. Nottingham’s English literature lecturers must think students are stupid.

How on Earth did our once learned institutions end up in such a ridiculous situation? Trigger warnings took off on American campuses a decade ago before quickly crossing the Atlantic. The idea behind them, proponents argued, was to give students a heads up about distressing content. Those who had experienced sexual assault, abuse or violence could then protect themselves from ‘triggering’ flashbacks by leaving class or employing coping strategies. In this way, trigger warnings came to be seen as compassionate. And if some compassion is good, the argument went, then more is clearly better. Warnings about every negative element of human existence soon came to be sprinkled liberally across reading lists and course guides. Indeed, even the word ‘trigger’ was removed from what became ‘content warnings’ for fear it might harm students who had witnessed gun violence.

Meanwhile, a growing number of psychologists questioned the use of such warnings. Some argued they simply did not work and that victims of assault were far more likely to experience flashbacks as a result of a random colour or smell than reading an academic text. Others went further and argued they ‘might exacerbate negative reactions or promote avoidance behaviours’.

These debates about the efficacy of trigger warnings take at face value that their purpose is to protect traumatised students. They miss the point that their use has long since morphed into something else altogether. Those issuing warnings today are likely to see all students as vulnerable and in need of protection – not so much from descriptions of assault, but mainly from politically dubious content. The warning Nottingham University has attached to The Canterbury Tales perfectly illustrates this trend.

If lecturers felt compelled to give a heads up to students who had experienced trauma, violent scenes abound in Chaucer’s work. There’s the grim pursuit of death in ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ that leads to one murder by stabbing and two by poisoning. ‘The Monk’s Tale’ goes one better. It features cannibalism, poisoning, hanging, beheading, suicide and children starving to death. The Wife of Bath – who was hit round the head by a former husband until she lost her hearing in one ear – tells of a young ‘mayde’ who was raped by a ‘lusty bacheler’ from King Arthur’s court. Meanwhile, the young wife in ‘The Clerk’s Tale’ is forced to obey her husband, even when he convinces her he has had their children executed. Then there’s the Prioress who relays a story of blood libel. A young boy, she tells her fellow pilgrims, was wandering in a Jewish ghetto, innocently singing songs in praise of the Virgin Mary, when he had his throat cut, his entrails removed and his body thrown into a sewage pit. He reappears before his grieving mother in ghost-like form.

None of these acts is felt worthy of a trigger warning by Nottingham’s lecturers. And to be clear, that’s a good thing. The gruesome details are a large part of why Chaucer continues to fascinate readers today. ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’ is funny, not horrific. The Wife of Bath is feisty, not a victim. This cast of characters reflect life in the Middle Ages, but they also speak to an eternal human appetite for stories that shock, horrify and humour us. The fact that rape, child abuse, knife crime or anti-Semitism were not flagged up, while students were warned about ‘expressions of Christianity’, exposes the true purpose that now lies behind trigger warnings.

By highlighting Christianity as the supposed problem, Nottingham lecturers are signalling to students that Chaucer’s work is a relic from an unenlightened past – a product of an era where diversity, equity and inclusion did not figure. The Canterbury Tales may have a few strong women, but they’re all white. And, worse, they’re all Christians. There are no Muslims, no black people, no transgender folx. Just old, English Christians. The horror! The trigger warning is meant as a big red flag to literature students, telling them not to enjoy Chaucer’s Tales. They must not laugh at the bawdiness or grimace at the murders. They must hold their noses and read solely to label ‘expressions of Christianity’ problematic.

Trigger warnings have always been a terrible idea. They infantilise students and serve as a precursor to censorship. But their use today reveals the politicisation of higher education and the expectation that students will practise not academic criticism, but moral conformity. It’s high time they were extinguished once and for all.