ENGLISH 240:  Medieval Literature

A leaf from a Book of Hours, probably from Poitiers circa 1470, recording the Little Office of the Virgin, a portion of the Mass

Spring 2008  Instructor: Arnie Sanders
Department of English, Goucher College  Page last updated: 05/07/2008 10:19:08 AM

5/7/08--  Stuck for a final paper topic?  Go to the Medieval Institute International Congress web site and open the "Sessions" PDF files for each day.  Search for "Trolius" (or whatever your favorite major primary source could be identified by) and look at the titles of the talks.  Then, write the paper you imagine ought to be delivered for that title.  If you get no hits for the title, try a main character, the genre, or some other issue-related term that might kick out a hit (e.g., "Decapitation," remember some unfortunate maidens in Malory and our old pal, the Green Knight?).  Give the Kalamazoo author credit for the inspiration, but the paper will be yours.  What—this doesn’t work for you?  Send me an email telling me which of the major works we read that you feel best prepared to write about, give me some idea what you are thinking about the works.  I will reply with some possibilities for papers.

        Kalamazoo 2008 Web Pages: Varieties of Middle English Pronunciation Aids and Goals; Types of passages which easily reward comparative performance; Friar Huberd's lisp; the PrioressT "O Alma Redemptoris Mater"

        In-Class Presentation Schedule.  Click here for guidance for how to prepare the presentations.  Note that you should not try to "cover" the reading for the day.  Focus your presentation on some issue or passage of interest to you, and use the Voice Board to record performances of the passage or passages to illustrate what you find interesting.  Click here for a guide to using the Horizon Wimba Voice Board for Presentations. 

        Analytical Themes in English 240:  This list of issues that are likely to emerge as we read and discuss this material is intended to stimulate your thinking and to help you find points of connection for your in-class presentations.  The list is not intended to foreclose other kinds of inquiries you might pursue.  Applying Critical Methods from English 215 to English 240: Reading early literature challenges beginners because the strangeness of the language is compounded by the strangeness of the customs, social roles, and almost every expectation one might bring to the earlier era from our own.  Take delight in that strangeness!  Let it show you an aesthetic and cultural norm that will challenge you to think like someone from another time.

        Do you want to hear more portions of Chaucer's poems read in Real Audio format?  Click here to go to the Chaucer Metapage's audio file index, and scroll to the bottom.  There you also can find an audio excerpt of The Book of the Duchess, and two excerpts from Troilus and Criseyde, the last work we'll read this semester. 

Summary

English 240 is an intermediate level introduction to Medieval culture and Middle English literature. We will focus on the "courtly makers" of English poetry, following the general topics of love and death. In addition, we will read contemporary non-fiction materials to help students reconstruct the medieval socio-political and theological world in which that loving and dying took place.. Our objectives are to understand how Medieval people actually encountered their literature and culture through period documents and historical studies, and to understand the rules followed by Medieval artists, especially their debt to and modifications of the classical traditions of Greece and Rome. We approach Middle English literature through five major genres: lyric, dream vision, romance, Breton lai, and the didactic essay.

The historical materials will provide a basis for knowing how Medieval literature drew upon and embellished the lived experience of the Middle Ages. Students are cautioned, however, to beware the tendency to read literature as a literal picture of medieval life. Even avowedly mimetic artists transform their subjects according to genre rules, and their audiences have to follow similar rules in order to perceive the mimesis or re-presentation of reality. To know the literature, we have to know both how poets' audiences actually experienced events as well as poets' rules for describing those events and the rules they expected their audiences to follow when interpreting their texts.

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