Reading Prose’s I know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read and St. Augustine’s The Motivation of Learning comes to me, upon distillation and reflection, as quite a privilege. Privilege because I can, in the year 2010, reflect upon the chasm that exists between the two writers. In essence, St. Augustine writes in a time without writers and readers, a time in which 95% of the world’s population “suffers” from illiteracy. In effect, St. Augustine preaches to a choir. Only a few could read his words at the time, and those who could read and write were an elite few. Prose’s audience reflects the exact opposite: her audience, world, time and place, perhaps reflects an 80% literacy rate. Prose speaks to me, a 16 year old, as we meet in an anthology of writing, reading and opinion. Prose writes to a competitive audience, spraying an opinion about learning that she hopes will stick somewhere.
St. Augustine writes as one crying in a wilderness, a vocal prayer, in the hope that someone might hear, someone might understand, that someone might read. St. Augustine writes of the meaning of language, communication, of sounds and speech. It’s a formative approach, rudimentary and, ultimately, faith based. In comparison, Prose message comes across as a commodity, buy this for this reason.
Privilege, then, to read a reasoned sermon and plea from St. Augustine to uplift the soul through our minds and language; Prose might as well hawk her thoughts and wares on the Atlantic City boardwalk, lots of listeners and buyers, just passing through to the next stall, the next opinion or next argument.
St. Augustine has no spin, just a sermon from the trenches, to enlighten anyone with ears to hear.
