Week 3--Geoffrey Chaucer, dream visions: the two kinds of "courtship," erotic and political / love, death & dream psychology

Tue. 2/11: Read Chaucer's The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 1-709. 

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Th. 2/13: Read Chaucer's The Boke of the Duchess, ll. 710-1334. 

_____Snow Day______________

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.  Click here for Paul Zumthor's concept of mouvánce of a narrative from one culture or language to another.  Note that Laskaya and Salisbury's edition, The Middle English Breton Lais, is available online, but I strongly urge you to read the print version.  If your budget is too restricted to pay even $15 for a used paperback, please consider printing the online version so that you can take notes on the texts.

Tue. 2/18: 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"] 

____________________________________(either or both "Le Fresne" lais)   __________________________(either or both "Launfal" lais)

Th. 2/20: "Sir Degare," "Bisclavert," 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".

______Caroline McDowell ("Sir Degare")______        ____Christine Cherry ("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.

Tue. 2/25: Breton lais in Middle English: read "Sir Orfew," "Sir Gowther," and "Sir Cleges" (L&S, 15-59, 263-307, and 367-407).  

__Bradley Wright ("Sir Orfew")____   _Craig Richie ("Sir Gowther")__    __Noah Klein ("Sir Cleges")__

Th. 2/27: "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle" (852 lines) and "Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle" (500 lines). 

___Hannah Wilkin ("Wedding")_______    ____ ______________________

Week 6--Alliterative verse: the Pearl-Poet--romance revisited; Christian and secular romance

Tue. 3/4: Read the Pearl-Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fyts 1 and 2 (ll. 1-1125). 

_____Troy Browne__________________    ____Victoria Nolan__________

Th. 3/6:  Read the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fyts 3 and 4 (ll. 1126-2530). 

_____Jisun Lee_____________________    _____Kelsey Newland_______  ________Zak Moss__________

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?).

______Loren Pittman__________________

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?).  Click here for one possible way to analyze the poem's rhetoric.

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Friday 3/14: Negotiable deadline for Midterm Papers, 5 PM, emailed as a properly formatted, MS-Word-readable file. 

Sat. 3/15-Sun. 3/23: Spring Break

Week 8--Manuscript construction, composition order, and Arthurian romance 

Week 9--"the matter of Britain" in Arthurian romance

Tue. 4/1: Read excerpts from the "Trystram" and "Sankgreall": "Lancelot and Elaine," "The Departure," "Lancelot," "Castle of Corbenic," and "Miracles of Galahad" (Malory 477-506, 515-524, 551-558, 593-608)

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Th. 4/3: Read  "The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" to the end of "The Healing of Sir Urry" (611-669). 

______Jisun Lee__________________

Week 10--"the matter of Britain," Malory's Morte and romance as tragedy; and "the matter of Troy," Chaucer's Troilus (Book I) and romance as comedy.  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 I-II)  Click here for some close-reading tips for the Troilus.  You can read Chaucer as you do Dickinson or Melville, but you need a little dictionary help with key words and a little concordance help sifting through the text for thematic repetitions.

Tue. 4/15: Read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Book I, lines 939-1092 and II, lines 1-826 (C almost talks herself out of and into loving T, then goes down to hear Antigone's song).  Click here to hear Susan Yager (Iowa State U.) read Book II, lines 449-504,

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Thurs.  4/17: Read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Book II, lines 827-1757 (C's nightingale-inspired dream, Pandarus teaches T to write a love letter (which the narrator paraphrases), P delivers the letter to C "by force" and takes C's answering letter to T (also paraphrased, C invited to Deiphebus' house for dinner where she will meet T for the first time)

_______Victoria Nolan_and Craig Richie____