Work Text:
The Star Just East of the Brightest is a landmark text in the study of a figure who permeates all Crimean cultural studies. The authors are Soren Daer and Ike Tyrust, of the University of Melior and Melior City University respectively. Daer is a scholar in Crimean New Era Cultural History, while Tyrust is a scholar of Tellius New Era Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Daer is a leading expert on the works of the Lover of Tellius’ Vanguard, an individual who remains unnamed to this day. The Lover (~20 TAE-~155 TNE) was a Goldoan Branded individual who resided both within and beyond the boundaries of Tellius in his lifetime, travelling alongside the Vanguard (named Ike, who lived ~20 TAE-57 TNE) during all his military engagements and in his subsequent travels, before he returned to Tellius in his old age.
As a Goldoan Branded, the unnamed Lover — thought to be one and the same man as the Greil Mercenaries’ tactician whose records are responsible for much that we know of the Ancient Tellius economy for those years — outlived the Vanguard by up to a century. His grief on parting with the man he had spent most of his life with yawned wide, and in the subsequent years of his life he wrote countless works still considered masterpieces of literature.
The Vanguard himself, for those who may be unfamiliar, was the greatest hero of Tellius in his time. Once a humble mercenary, he rose to become a general for the soon-to-be queen of Crimea, Elincia Ridell Crimea (21 TAE-60 TNE). He fought to liberate the country he called home from the Daein Empire, eventually succeeding in bringing down the monarchy in that state (alongside other deeds). In years to come, as war came to Tellius once more, he fought both Daein and Begnion again on behalf of the allied Laguz-Crimean army, an event that culminated in an assault on the primary monument of the Begnion religion. While the authenticity of the purported fight against an actual goddess is in constant historical doubt, this work treats the events as if they occurred, because the Lover wrote of them as if they did and it therefore forms a significant part of the context of his work.
This work aims to bring together all the literary writings of the Lover — not for the first time, but for the first time in this format. Alongside the poems themselves, which number at 127, each poem receives an approximate date (which, coincidentally, allows the poems to be published in a probable chronological order for the first time) and a short blurb on its historical context. Alongside this contextual work on all the poems — some of which have gone almost entirely uncommented upon in existing literature — is literary analysis of the content of the works themselves. This dual, interdisciplinary approach is aimed at illuminating the full context of these works to readers familiar, unfamiliar, or somewhere in between.
Particular attention is given to a facet of the works that was not revealed until this decade. In early 2019, Daer delivered a paper outlining the first use of the Goldoan Papers in the study of the Lover’s works. The Goldoan Papers — a veritable archive that came to be open to the public after a recent change of heart in Goldoan record-handling officials — contained not only numerous unpublished works from the Lover, but also drafts, and, most notably, personal writings of the Lover himself.
These writings did something that had flown entirely under the radar in studies of the Lover’s work before — they indicated, for the first time, that the Lover was a man. This flew in the face of established tradition for the scholarship, which had identified the Lover’s resting place as alongside the Vanguard; a grave that contained the remains of both a man and a woman. Daer’s statement was that not only were the Vanguard and Lover two men, but that the Lover was what we would now in modern (and ever shifting) language identify as transgender.
Because of the relatively recent nature of this revelation, it has not been given the attention it yet deserves. In practise, this means that this work prioritises queer interpretations of the Lover’s work as the most up to date research on these texts.
That does not mean, however, that the entirety of the analysis is dedicated to such interpretations. This book, as alluded to earlier, is designed for multiple levels of understanding. As such, it is designed in ‘tiers’; many annotations have multiple levels, designed for beginner, intermediary, and expert perspectives on the work. It is the hope of the authors and editors alike that this will enable two things: the first being that this book can be used to teach the Lover’s work at multiple levels of education, and the second being that people can focus on the areas they are most interested in while reading and still gain some understanding of the rest if desired.
While every text in this work is given the treatment of annotations, some works are given more detailed analysis than others. This is most true of a handful of types of poem: those that have gone understudied before now, those that have particularly illuminating new interpretations as a result of the Goldoan Papers, and those that are particularly valuable in the teaching of the Lover’s work. The works that have been given full, detailed chapters of analysis are: Lament of the Lover of Tellius’ Vanguard, On Meetings, The brightest days, Memories Eternal, and The nature of remembrance (from which this work takes its title).
Introductions have a tendency to drag on, but there is one final element of the work to address. Towards the end of the book, after the final analysis chapter (‘Grappling with heroism: The nature of remembrance and the Lover’s obscurity’), there is a chapter on the use of this work to teach the concept of gender euphoria in a classroom setting. If you have no interest in teaching nor the concept, you can skip to the work itself; if not, it was suggested by our editors that we explain the concept in short before the outset of the book so it does not come without introduction in its designated chapter.
Gender euphoria runs throughout the Lover’s work. He was a transgender man, as far as we are able to understand it — through his remains, and through looking at his work with a fine-toothed comb to references to his experiences. This is a concept emerging in gender studies as an opposite to the oft-encountered gender dysphoria, to counteract the more common narratives of suffering that have characterised the area for years. It also forms an important aspect of gender identity formulation to teach in the classroom.
That gender euphoria is present in the Lover’s musings on the proceedings surrounding his return to Tellius, evident chiefly in the respect for his position as a man and the recognition he received as the Vanguard’s husband. He refers to physical transformation in his work not with the trepidation of one growing older, but as someone growing into a body he feels at home in. The unpacking and explanation of these feelings is a vital tool in conceptualising just what bodies and gender meant to people living so many years ago and how much those people shared with those who live today. Illuminating this is a political effort, but it is also an act of justice for the Lover, whose gender went misunderstood for so many years, and an act of love for those who can live more fully through seeking out joy over fleeing pain.
This book is a labour of love, performed by people who have been shaped by and continue to shape the Lover of Tellius’ Vanguard. It is our sincere hope as authors that those who experience this work will come to love him just as much for everything he can offer nearly two thousand years from the time he set pen to paper. His words echo through the ages, far beyond his own reckoning, and it is our joy to present that to you.
Acknowledgements:
This book would not have been possible without the time and effort of countless people whose names do not otherwise appear within the pages of this work. First and foremost thanks go to Mist, for tirelessly putting up with both of us in the worst parts of the book-writing process. Thanks is due also to Micaiah and Pelleas for editing, and Lucia and Elincia from the publishing house for their pre- (and surely post-) release hard work in making this book a real thing.
To Kurthnaga, for believing in this book’s concept and hearing us out when it was little more than a notebook of scattered, disorganised ideas and a long history of living with these texts. The breadth of your support was unexpected but immensely welcome. Thank you also to the THRC for helping us eat while we were writing, the oft-sung yet still somehow underappreciated fuel of so much amazing research in our fields.
Thanks goes to Stefan and Sanaki for the constant and welcome critique. You challenge our thoughts on Tellius’ Vanguard and his Lover every day in the most constructive way. Thank you to Oscar for the surprise cooking, and Titania for the constant support. Every member of our huge family could never be mentioned here, but know that every single one of you is appreciated immensely. And, yes, we will sign your copies — I know we kept you in suspense in an unnecessarily drawn out joke that was only funny because we were both in a book-writing haze. Your suffering is over now.
A final thank you goes to Greil and Elena. Your love, though it only ever physically touched one of us, emanates forever through our lives. Your loss is felt with every day, but we know you would be proud to see how far your little boy has come.
There’s also one last thing to do before we close off. We did a coin toss with our editors (we are so sorry) for who got to get the final word in the acknowledgements. Soren, as ever, was the winner — if we manage another book together, we’ll arm wrestle for the last spot.
Because of that little competition, I (Ike) get to say something first. So, Soren: I love you beyond measure. You came into my life at a time when I didn’t know I needed someone to share my life with. I feel like I’ve known you forever, yet every day you prove that I can know you more. I feel privileged to know you and work with you. Your perspectives on every aspect of life have me seeing new light with every passing moment.
In the end, I feel rather lucky that I lost the coin toss and got to go first, because I get to do this: Soren, I want nothing more than to talk about poetry and ancient trans people with you forever. Will you marry me?
And as such, it turns out that I (Soren) pulled the short straw in going last. Ike: you’re incredible and insufferable — naturally, I love you. I have experienced more joy in the handful of years I have known you than in the rest of my life, and I don’t intend to let go of that happiness any time soon. You gave me confidence where I had none, you hold me back when I go over the top, and you’re always there for me.
I was going to close the acknowledgements by asking you to marry me and then wait for you to open the proof copy from the publishers to get your answer. Instead, I got your proposal in an email from Pelleas, informing me of what you wrote so I could avoid being redundant. So, I suppose there’s nothing else for it: yes, a thousand times yes. But I’m waiting for the print copy for you to see the answer you already know.
Instead, I’ll close this book with an acknowledgement to our readers: thank you for putting up with our little indulgences at the end of this book. I hope the actual content is more interesting.