England’s Late-Medieval Alliterative Poetry

3 credits · Graduate

This seminar will survey such masterworks of the late-medieval period as Pearl, Sir Gawain and Piers Plowman, as well as diverse lyrics and short poems, major romance-narratives and cycle-plays. Analysis of the poems’ verbal resources, stylistic techniques and topical preoccupations will be conjoined to some questions of codicology and pertinent history. The course will build upon a basic undergraduate acquaintance with the Middle English language and canon, and will offer an introduction to manuscript studies. FORMATS: Seminar