FWS: Epic, Romance, and Fate: Medieval Germanic Literature

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

A dragon-slayer wins a kingdom—then loses everything to betrayal. A young fool wanders into King Arthur’s court and embarks on a quest for the Holy Grail. The Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, two masterpieces of medieval German literature, shaped the Western imagination long before Tolkien or Wagner. In this seminar, we will ask what these violent, strange, and moving texts reveal about nobility, loyalty, men, women, and moral growth. Close reading will be our method: slowing down to notice how a text thinks through imagery, structure, and silence. Essay assignments progress from descriptive observation to interpretive argument, with revision and peer review central to the process. No prior knowledge of the Middle Ages is required—only a willingness to read carefully.