Class Schedule, Spring 2008
Week 1-- Medieval English ideas of identity: household goods, belief, and social organization; capitalism vs. feudal loyalty; God as a feudal lord. Come to class ready to work the first day! See the short but important reading assignments below.
Course introduction--European and English Medieval culture (C11-15); early instruction in how to read and interpret Medieval literature, and how to read and pronounce Middle English. Please read in time for class "Landmarks in time and deeds for novice Medievalists," Middle English (ME) phonology and Chaucer's "Gentilesse" (RC: 654). In Furnivall's Earliest English Wills, read the will of Robert Corn (the first and oldest one). Remember to print it so that you can take notes and bring it to class! And read this brief excerpt from the "Prologue" to the collected lais of Marie de France. Click here for a guide to today's class.Tue. 1/29:
Thurs. 1/31: Read A generall Rule to teche euery man that is willynge for to lerne to serve a lorde or mayster in euery thyng to his plesure [A fifteenth-century guide for household servants of the nobility]. The text of the "Rule," itself, runs from page 11 to page 17. A printable PDF version is stored here--remember to print pages 11-17 so that you can take notes and bring it to class! Also read the wills of Lady Alice West (†1395) and Dame Isabel, Countess of Warwick (†1439), in Furnivall's Earliest English Wills, and Sir Thomas Littleton, Littleton's Tenures in English, "Homage," "Fealty," "Attournment". Click here for a guide to today's class.
Week 2--Medieval English feudal mentalities: love as a rule-based invention, and love among the estates of English society; so-called "courtly love" and Christian marriages; Chaucer's lyrics and dream visions: the two kinds of "courtship," erotic and political / love, death & dream psychology
Tue. 2/5: Read Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love [online excerpts--the complete translation is on reserve for English 240 at the library], Chaucer's "Merciles Beaute," "Against Women Unconstant," "To Rosemounde" (RC: 649), "Truth" (RC: 653, and click here to hear Susan Yager read the poem), "Lak of Stedfastnesse" (RC: 654), "Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton" (RC: 655-6), and "Chaucers Wordes Unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn" (RC 650); and Bernart de Ventadorn, “Can vei la lauzeta mover” [“When I see the lark beat his wings”]. To hear Marie Lafitte and the Ensemble Unicorn performing a rather spirited up-tempo version of Bernart's song, click here. At this early stage in your Middle English studies, you may find it helpful to consult the "Explanatory Notes." Sign up for Middle English practice conferences and in-class presentations/interpretations. Click here for a web page containing interpretive help for the lyric poems.
Wed. 2/6: Middle English practice conferences (c. 20 minutes each). Prepare to read me a passage of at least one coherent sentence from Parliament of Foules, ll. 1-699, and be ready to tell me, in Modern English paraphrase, what Chaucer told us in Middle English.
Thurs. 2/7: Background: Read the Chaucer biographical material in RC xv-xxvi and Chaucer's Parliament of Foules, ll. 1-699. For a free, online version of the poem at the Online Medieval & Classical Library (Douglas B. Killings and Roy Tennant), click here. For some additional interpretive help with PoF, click here.
Fri. 2/8: Middle English practice conferences (c. 20 minutes each). Prepare to read me a passage of at least one coherent sentence from The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 1-709, and be ready to tell me, in Modern English paraphrase, what Chaucer told us in Middle English.
Week 3--Geoffrey Chaucer, dream visions: the two kinds of "courtship," erotic and political / love, death & dream psychology
Read Chaucer's The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 1-709. (Note: this hyperlink goes to a general introduction to the poem.) For a free, online version of the poem at the Online Medieval & Classical Library (Douglas B. Killings and Roy Tennant), click here.Tue. 2/12:
Wed. 2/13: Middle English conferences (c. 20 minutes). Prepare to read me a passage of at least one coherent sentence from The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 71901334, and be ready to tell me, in Modern English paraphrase, what Chaucer told us in Middle English.
Th. 2/14: Read Chaucer's The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 710-1334. (Note: this hyperlink goes to a passage-specific set of discussion issues that might be helpful when writing a mid-semester paper about BoD.)
Week 4-- Marie de France, Breton lais and their Middle English adaptations Click here for some notes toward a structuralist analysis of the Middle English Breton lais.
Tue. 2/19: Read Marie de France, Lais of Marie de France: "Le Fresne," (pp. 61-67 in the Busby and Burgess edition) and the Middle English "Lay Le Freine," Online Introduction to "Lay Le Freine"; Online Text of "Lay Le Freine" in Middle English], Marie de France, "Lanval" (pp. 61-7 & 73-81, in the Busby and Burgess edition) and Thomas Chestre's Middle English: "Sir Launfal" [Online Introduction to "Sir Launfal"; Online Text of "Sir Launfal"] (Note: Thomas Chestre is one of the few named Middle English poets composing Breton lais, but we know almost nothing else about him other than that he also is named as the author of the romance, Lybeaus Desconus or "The Fair Unknown.")
Th. 2/21: "Sir Degare," and "Emare," (a paper text of these "non-Marie" lais is available in Rumble, 81-177). [Online Introduction to "Sir Degare"; Online Text of "Sir Degare" Online introduction to "Emare"; Online Text of "Emare".
Week 5--Middle English English Breton Lais with No Link to Marie. / the "Gawain" romances Click here for some analytical strategies for writing about folk-art literature in the lais, and the Gawain-romances, vs. the self-conscious, "high-art" literature of Chaucer and the Pearl-Poet.
Breton lais in Middle English: read "Sir Gowther" and "Kyng Orfew" (a paper text of these "non-Marie" lais is available in Rumble, where "Orfeo" is titled "Kyng Orfew" following another manuscript, 179-226). [Online Introduction to "Sir Gowther"; Online Text of "Sir Gowther"; Online Introduction to "Sir Orfeo"; Online Text of Sir Orfeo"].Tue. 2/26:
Th. 2/28: "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle" (852 lines) and "Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle" (500 lines). [Note: because these readings were added to the syllabus too late for a book-order, please consult the online Introduction to "Wedding"; online text of "Wedding"; online Introduction to "Carle"; and online text of "Carle"].
Week 6--Alliterative verse: the Pearl-Poet--romance revisited; Christian and secular romance
Read the Pearl-Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fyts 1 and 2 (ll. 1-1125). Click here for the Luminarium.org links to the Middle English text and some Modern English translations of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." Click here for the U. Toronto text of the Middle English followed by Modern English prose translations which you can compare with Finch's.Tue. 3/4:
Th. 3/6: Read the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fyts 3 and 4 (ll. 1126-2530). Click here for links to seasonal images from life on the estate of a great lord like Gawain's Welsh host.
Week 7--Alliterative verse dream vision: the Pearl-Poet--mystical poetry and numerology; dream-visions meet mathematics.
Tue. 3/11: Introduction to the Pearl-Poet and the alliterative, rhyming dream vision, "Pearl": Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse and the Middle English "Alliterative Revival"; magnates and barons vs. the king's court; Northwest Midlands dialect; numerological interpretation. Read "Pearl," stanza groups 1 through 10 (600 lines, or is it 599 lines, because the fifth stanza in the eighth group appears to be missing a line?).
Th. 3/13: Read "Pearl," stanza groups 11 through 20 (612 lines, because the fifteenth group appears to have an extra stanza--hmmm...something funny going on here, eh?).
Friday 3/14: Deadline for Midterm Papers, 5 PM, emailed as a properly formatted, MS-Word-readable file. Note that if you elect the email option, you are entirely responsible for the paper's appearance as it emerges from my printer. If you cannot exercise that kind of sophisticated control over digital media, do it the old fashioned way and deliver it to my office door in paper. Let me know, by email or phone or in person, which delivery mode you will use. Click here for several ways to approach interpreting Medieval literature using tools you learned in Critical Methods.
Sat. 3/15-Sun. 3/23: Spring Break
Week 8--Manuscript construction, composition order, and Arthurian romance Reading Malory is more complicated than reading Marie or Chaucer because we have three possible versions of his text: the one Caxton edited for the first print edition in 1484, Vinaver's edition of Caxton and the Winchester Manuscript (1947/1967/1990), and the Winchester MS facsimile, itselfl(1976). Click here for a short overview of this interpretive problem. The short answer is, "read Vinaver's edition," but do so with an awareness that Vinaver made numerous questionable editorial decisions that we can challenge based on the Winchester MS facsimile and/or Caxton's edition. To read the story of how Walter Oakeshott discovered the manuscript Vinaver's edition is based on (1934), click here. Provenance of Malory's Text. Malory's Sources.
Read the transcriptions of two columns from folio 71 v of Harley MS 2253, look at this image of the manuscript page (expand the image), and read Joseph Dane's "Page Layout and Textual Autonomy in Harley MS 2253 'Lenten Ys Come Wiþ Love to Toune'" Medium Aevum LXCIII.1 (1999) 32-41 (available online at: http://seaTue. 3/25: Two poems, or one?--
Th. 3/27: Read in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, "The Tale of King Arthur" ("Merlin," "Balin or the Knight with the Two Swords," "Torre and Pellinor," "The War with the Five Kings," "Arthur and Accolon," and "Gawain, Ywain, and Marhalt"). (Malory 3-110) Note this hyperlink covers all of "Segment 1," the first continuous sequence of composition in the Winchester Manuscript (ff. 1-70) and ends where the "Roman War" narrative (which we're not reading) starts. For a short note on how Malory was edited by Vinaver based on the Winchester MS, click here.
Week 9--"the matter of Britain" in Arthurian romance
Read "A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake," "The Tale of Gareth that was called Bewmaynes," and the following excerpts from the "Trystram" and "Sankgreall": "Lancelot and Elaine," "The Departure," "Lancelot," "Castle of Corbenic," and "Miracles of Galahad" (Malory 149-73, 477-506, 515-524, 551-558, 593-608).Tue. 4/1:
Th. 4/3: Read Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" to the end of "The Healing of Sir Urry" (611-669). We now are in a section of the text in which Malory begins to take the kinds of artistic liberties with his translation/transformation of his sources that Modern readers expect of a fiction-writer. Click here for a short discussion of the signs of this change.
Week 10--and Chaucer's Troilus (Book I), romance as comedy.
Read the conclusion of "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" and "The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur Saunz Guerdon" (673-726).Tue. 4/8:
Thurs. 4/10: Read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Book I, ll. 1-938 (T reveals C's name to her uncle and P demands T repent to God of Love) and general introduction. For a hyperlink to an online text of Barry Windeatt's edition of Chaucer's Troilus, click here and scroll down to "Chaucer, Geoffrey."
Week 11-- the Renaissance Chaucer; the "matter of Troy"; romance as erotic instruction (Troilus I1 and II) For a hyperlink to an online text of Barry Windeatt's edition of Chaucer's Troilus, click here and scroll down to "Chaucer, Geoffrey."