I Loved You First | Not Easily Conquered ▸ [STUCKY]

Ch. 17

2006

In the past year I have been afforded the privilege of sitting in on a class at Harvard University. It is a course offered only to upperclassmen in the English Literature department, titled "The Thirteen Letters: An Examination."

Over the course of the semester students were assigned to do close readings of at least five of the now timeless wartime love letters written by Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. This means that students would approach Barnes' letters as a complete literary work and analyze it as such, combing through the text for imagery, symbolism, and metaphor. This is groundbreaking, as it marks the first instance of Barnes' letters being studied not for their historical or sociopolitical relevance, but rather purely for their artistic merit. After two days of auditing the class, I couldn't help but wonder how no one had ever studied the letters in this way before.

Barnes was no conventional writer. Public records tell us that he attended school until the seventh grade and then dropped out in order to find a job, as many boys of the time did. Despite this, Barnes' grasp of the English language is by turns electrifying and anguished; he expresses effortlessly an entire range of human emotion, even with his lack of formal education, his poverty-stricken upbringing, and his age.

Speaking of age, James Barnes died in battle at a criminally young twenty-six after seeing combat for a little less than two years. This means that he penned his surviving creations between 1943 and 1945, arguably the most dangerous period of the war. His KIA status makes his vibrant account of love and loss all the more poignant. Had he lived longer, Barnes may have become America's greatest wartime novelist. As it is, he unintentionally joined the ranks of O'Brien and Vonnegut with his unapologetic approach to the incendiary topics of violence and sexuality.

Each hour in the classroom was focused on discussion, rather than traditional lectures. One day in late November, the homework assignment had been to prepare any kind of story detailing  your own personal experience with the aspects of the letters that had gained even more fame after being integrated into popular culture. Several students showed up in the familiar t-shirt with Barnes'  army photograph printed above a large, slanting repetition of "Love is love is love." One senior brought a movie poster, signed by director Joe Wright, of the controversial 2002 film "Unrequited." Memorably, near the end of class, another young man pulled up his shirt to show off a tattoo on his ribs that read in a simple font "I loved you first," a beloved quote from Barnes' final letter. He shared that he got the tattoo because his mother, who had died of breast cancer two years earlier, treasured the honesty and universality of Barnes' letters.

At the end of the semester, Professor Alison Chen, to every student's immense relief, made an announcement that there would be no final, cumulative or otherwise. Instead there was a small assignment: a one page paper, no longer than 1200 words, detailing each student's emotional reaction to the letters as whole. I spoke to students after their last paper was due.

"It was, in total honesty, I think the hardest paper I've ever had to write at this school," one junior, a whopping double major in English and Engineering, told me. "I didn't realize how emotional the letters made me, but over the course of the semester I just got so invested in this man's story. He bared his soul, and so I wanted to be generous in return. It was so hard to keep it short enough to turn in and still express all that I felt."

She confessed, laughing, that she ended up writing eleven pages, which she spruced up and submitted to the Harvard Crimson, where it will be published as an article in the spring.

There are two sides, however, to every story. Chen's lecture series, unfortunately, could not fully address the other man who played an integral role in Barnes' life, as very little is actually known about him.