Coventry Cathedral and Warwick Castle

After approximately 10 hours of straight travel (and a 2 hour stay in the immigration check at Heathrow) our English 399: British Literary Landscapes group arrived at Harlaxton College in Lincolnshire, England. The informative and interesting tour of Harlaxton complete, our very much sleep-deprived class headed to bed; not a one of us, I think, slept badly. This Wednesday morning we boarded the bus at 8:30 a.m. and set off for Coventry Cathedral and Warwick Castle.
Our class first traveled via minibus about two hours to Coventry, in a town for noted its almost complete destruction during WWII , where we visited the standing ruins of a 14th century Cathedral. There is a new and modernized Cathedral beside older one, which we also visited as part of the self-guided tour. The atmosphere was quiet, solemn, and serene in both the modern building and the old. The stained-glass windows were a beautifully stunning feature of the new church, and appropriately in the brochure they are described as a “link between old and new Cathedrals, and a symbol of resurrection.” In effect, these two sites served as a continuous reminder of the destructiveness of war and the parallel Christian theme of forgiveness. The World War II museum underneath the remains was a powerful perspective of the war that provided much insight into the history of the attack as well as the general conditions of wartime. Hearing Wilfred Owen’s poem describing the harrowing affects of war added to the respect I felt for the site and the effectiveness of its anti-war message.
I greatly anticipated our next visit to Warwick Castle, imagining a medieval time capsule rich with history and asking for exploration. In actuality, it is the British version of Disneyland, with a playground, costumed actors, and a full gift shop. This atmosphere made it difficult to even imagine life mid-eleventh century, soon after the arrival of the Normans to Britain. For me, it was heartbreaking to see such a lasting historical structure, once a symbol of enormous wealth and power, degraded to a money-swindling amusement park. The only solace I found, ironically, was on top of Guy’s Tower where I could enjoy the wonderful views, stretching for perhaps hundreds of miles, and in the gaols, the dark and eerie tower dungeon where prisoners were stretched, hung from chains, and left for years, forgotten. These places were the ones that seemed most authentic to medieval times.
The difference between the treatment of these two sites by both visitors and the administration comments on the air of inconsistency and conflict of modern humanity. Both sites were medieval structures with historical significance in Britain, where many people for hundreds of years sought solace and protection. The Coventry Cathedral, one of the only surviving structures of the air raid, is a British revered landmark that reminds visitors of human destructiveness and power in the face of it. Warwick Castle, on the other hand, purposefully distracts from any historic relevance in favor of escapism and entertainment with the hopes, undoubtedly, of financial gain. Needless to say, there were much more people at Warwick castle, making me ask why it was okay to sort of shuffle over the lives and history associated with this site but not so with the Coventry. It must be, I think, the closeness of WWII to today’s culture and the fact that there are many alive who experience the war firsthand. It’s too impossible for some to imagine the medieval fortress roaring with life since it was about 900 years ago that it flourished. Indeed, it is quite difficult for me to picture as well. Is the time gap too large for the average person to really understand life in that time, and similarly, what determines how long is too long? Currently, I couldn’t imagine children playing in the ruins of the Cathedral, vendors selling burgers, and men dressed as soldiers with children dressed in miniature gas masks—maybe give it a few hundred years.