Literature

This is the prompt: James Baldwin writes in, ‘A Stranger in the Village,’ that, ‘The cathedral at Chartres, I have said, says something to the people of this village which it cannot say to me; but it is important to understand that this cathedral says something to me which it cannot say to them.’ In what way, does your personal experience and/or identity inform your reading of the works we have studying that may exceed what was originally intended (or possible) for readers of that time period?