everything.study
21L.460

Arthurian Literature

3-0-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Tracing the evolution of King Arthur (and principal knights), students consider what underlies the appeal of this figure whose consistent reappearance in western culture has performed the medieval prophecy that he would be rex quondam et futurus : the once and future king. Examines how Arthur's persona has been reinvented and rewritten throughout history, including portrayals as Christian hero and war-leader, ineffective king and pathetic cuckold, and as a tragic figure of noble but doomed intentions. Enrollment limited.

Spring 2015 · Medieval Literature: Love, Sex, and Marriage

Topics

  • Introductions; Getting comfortable with Middle English; some medieval songs about married life (“In Praise of Women,” “Abuse of Women”)
  • Medieval Marriage Lyrics, (continued)
  • Geoffrey Chaucer
  • Andreas Capellanus, and Marie de France / Anonymous
  • The Song of Songs , and Medieval Beguines
  • Abelard and Heloise, and Barbara Newman
  • Chrétien de Troyes
  • Julian of Norwich
  • Margery Kempe
  • Geoffrey Chaucer (continued)
  • Geoffrey Chaucer (continued) and Linda Georgianna
  • Anonymous / Simon Armitage
  • Thomas Chestre
  • The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle
  • Dame Sirith
  • Floris and Blanchefleur
  • Student presentations
  • Conclusion

Readings

  • [Chaucer] = Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue: Authoritative Text, Sources and Backgrounds, Criticism . Edited by Verdel Amos Kolve, and Glending Olson. W. W. Norton & Company Incorporation, 1989. ISBN: 9780393952452.
    Required
  • [de Troyes] = de Troyes, Chrétien. Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart . Translated by Burton Raffel. Yale University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780300071214.
    Required
  • [Armitage] = Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (A New Verse Translation) . W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN: 9780393334159.
    Required
  • [Salisbury] = Salisbury, Eve. Trials & Joys of Marriage . Western Michigan University, 2002. ISBN: 9781580440356.
    Required
  • [Locke] = Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love . Translated by John Jay Parry. Columbia University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780231073059.
    Required
  • [Laskaya] = Laskaya, Anne, and Eve Salisbury, eds. The Middle English Breton Lays . Western Michigan University Medieval, 1995. ISBN: 9781879288621.
    Required
  • [Pope] = Pope, Marvin H. Song of Songs . Vol. 7. Yale University Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780300139495.
    Required
  • [Clairvaux] = Leclercq, Jean, ed. On the Song of Songs II, Sermons 21-46 . Vol. 2. Cistercian Publications, 1976. ISBN: 9780879077075.
    Required
  • [Bowie] = Bowie, Fiona. Beguine Spirituality: Mystical Writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg, Beatrice of Nazareth, and Hadewijch of Brabant . Crossroad Publication Company, 1990. ISBN: 9780824509934.
    Required
  • [Levitan] = Levitan, William. Abelard & Heloise: The Letters and other Writings . Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporation, 2007. ISBN: 9780872208759. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Required
  • [Newman] = Newman, Barbara. From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature . University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780812215458. [Preview with Google Books ] ↗
    Required
  • [Georgianna] = Georgianna, Linda. “ The Clerk’s Tale and the Grammar of Assent .” Speculum 70, no. 4 (1995): 793–821. ↗
    Required
  • [Staley] = Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe . Edited by Lynn Staley. The Folio Society, 2004.
    Required
  • [Glasscoe] = Glasscoe, Marion, ed. Julian of Norwich: A Revelation of Love . Liverpool University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780859894203.
    Required
  • [Hahn] = Hahn, Thomas, ed. Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales . Western Michigan University, 1995. ISBN: 9781879288591.
    Required
  • [Kooper] = Kooper, Erik. Sentimental and Humorous Romances: Floris And Blancheflour, Sir Degrevant, The Squire of Low Degree, The Tournament of Tottenham, and the Feast of Tottenham . Western Michigan University, 2006. ISBN: 9781580441032.
    Required
  • SES #: 2 · TOPICS: Medieval marriage lyrics (continued) · READINGS: [Salisbury] “Introduction.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 3–4 · TOPICS: Geoffrey Chaucer · READINGS: [Chaucer] “Wife of Bath’s Prologue.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 8–9 · TOPICS: Chrétien de Troyes · READINGS: [de Troyes] “Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 10 · TOPICS: Julian of Norwich · READINGS: [Glasscoe]
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 11 · TOPICS: Margery Kempe · READINGS: [Staley]
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 12 · TOPICS: Geoffrey Chaucer (continued) · READINGS: [Chaucer] “Clerk’s Prologue and Tale, Parts 1–3.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 14 · TOPICS: Anonymous / Simon Armitage · READINGS: [Armitage] “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitts 1–2.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 15 · TOPICS: Anonymous / Simon Armitage (continued) · READINGS: [Armitage] “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitts 3–4.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 16 · TOPICS: Thomas Chestre · READINGS: [Laskaya] “Sir Launfal.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 17 · TOPICS: The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle · READINGS: [Hahn] “The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 18 · TOPICS: Geoffrey Chaucer (continued) · READINGS: [Chaucer] “Merchant’s Tale.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 19 · TOPICS: Dame Sirith · READINGS: [Salisbury] “Dame Sirith.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 20 · TOPICS: Geoffrey Chaucer (continued) · READINGS: [Chaucer] “Franklin’s Tale.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 21 · TOPICS: Floris and Blanchefleur · READINGS: [Kooper] “Floris and Blanchefleur.”
    Reading assignment
  • Pyles, Thomas, and John Algeo. “The Middle English Period (1100–1500).” Chapter 6 in English: An introduction to language . Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970.
    Listed reading
Fall 2013 · Medieval Literature: Legends of Arthur

As a quasi-historical, quasi-legendary figure of consistently great popularity, King Arthur has been subject to an extraordinary amount of reinvention and rewriting: as a Christian hero and war-leader; as an ineffective king and pathetic cuckold; and as a tragic figure of noble but doomed intentions. As we trace Arthur's evolution and that of principal knights, we will ask what underlies the appeal of this figure whose consistent reappearance in western culture has performed the medieval prophecy that he would be _rex quondam et futurus_: the once and future king.

Readings

Spring 2005 · Medieval Literature: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer

Topics

  • Domination and Desire
  • Dolce Stil Nuovo
  • Ennobling Love: Sublimation and Subjection
  • Historical Background: Secular Politics
  • Historical Background: Church Politics
  • Florentine History and the The Divine Comedy
  • Epic and Romance
  • Moral Perversion and Linguistic Distortion
  • Confession and the Practice of Penitence
  • Nature and the Power of Love
  • Ecstatic Desire
  • Moral Cosmology
  • Visions of the Ideal Society
  • The Ends of Language
  • The Plague of Language
  • Comedy and Tragedy
  • Rhetoric and Redemption
  • Historical Background: The Fourteenth-Century Renaissance in England
  • Britain and the Myth of Trojan Origins
  • Ricardian Politics
  • Free Will and Determinism
  • Mediators and Mediation
  • Multiplicity and Indeterminacy
  • Tragedy and Transcendence

Readings

  • Alighieri, Dante. La Vita Nuova. Translated by Mark Musa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0192839357.
    Required
  • ———. Inferno . Translated by Allen Mandlebaum. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1982. ISBN: 0553213393.
    Required
  • ———. Purgatorio . Translated by Allen Mandlebaum. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1983. ISBN: 055321344X.
    Required
  • ———. Paradiso . Translated by Allen Mandlebaum. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1986. ISBN: 0553212044.
    Required
  • Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron . Translated by G. H. McWilliam. 2nd ed. London, UK and New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1972, 1995, 2003. ISBN: 0140449302.
    Required
  • Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde . Edited by Barry Windeatt. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0192832905.
    Required
  • Selected authors. Selected Troubadour Lyrics . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Dolce Stil Nuovo
    Listed reading
  • Dante. La Vita Nuova . i-xxi.
    Listed reading
  • Guinizelli, Guido. Al cor gentil . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Dante. La Vita Nuova . xxii-xlii.
    Listed reading
  • Cavalcante, Guido. Sonnets . xxii and xxiii. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Florentine History and the The Divine Comedy
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Inferno. i-xi.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Inferno. xii-xxii.
    Listed reading
  • De Vulgari Eloquentia . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Inferno. xxiii-xxxiv.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Purgatorio. i-xi.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Purgatorio. xii-xxii.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Purgatorio. xxiii-xxxiii.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Paradiso. i-xi.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Paradiso. xii-xxii.
    Listed reading
  • Dante. Paradiso. xxiii-xxxiii.
    Listed reading
  • Boccaccio. Decameron. Prologue; I. Introduction, i, ii, iii; II. vii, ix; III. i, iii, x.
    Listed reading
  • Boccaccio. Decameron. IV. i, ii, v; V. iv, x; VI. Introduction, v, vii, x, Conclusion.
    Listed reading
  • Boccaccio. Decameron. VII. i, ii, vi, viii, ix; VIII. i, vii; IX. ii, vi, x; X. v, x, Epilogue.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde. I. 1-469.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde. I. 470-1090.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde. II.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde . III.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde . IV.
    Listed reading
  • Chaucer. Troilus and Criseyde . V.
    Listed reading
Spring 2004 · Medieval Literature: Medieval Women Writers

Topics

  • Introduction
  • Biblical and Patristic Materials
  • Hagiography: Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
  • Virgin Martyrdom in the Comic Mode
  • Transforming the Past
  • The Trivium: Scholasticism and the Literary Curriculum
  • Medieval Rhetoric and the Power of Emotions
  • The Self Reformed
  • Independent Research Project Presentations
  • Courtly Love and Self-presentation
  • Romance and Aristocratic Society
  • Adventures on the Celtic Fringe
  • The Quadrivium: Science in the Medieval Curriculum
  • The Science of Salvation
  • Spirituality and Courtly Love
  • Mysticism and Heresy
  • Affective Piety and Autobiography
  • The Disorders of Divine Love
  • Objects of Affection
  • Imitations of Love
  • Disciplines of the Self
  • Late Medieval Feminism
  • Allegories of Power
  • The Social Orders
  • The Crisis of Nationalism

Readings

  • Platt, Rutherford Hayes, and J. Alden Brett, eds. The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden . New York: Plume, 1974. (LBB)
    Required
  • Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda, ed. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature . New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. (MWVL)
    Required
  • McNamara, Jo Ann, John E. Halborg, and Gordon Whatley, eds. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages . Durham: Duke University Press, 1992. (SWDA)
    Required
  • Barsby, John, tr. Terence . Cambridge: Harvard University Press - Loeb Classics, 2001.
    Required
  • Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. A Florilegium of Her Works . Translated by Katharina M. Wilson. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1998.
    Required
  • Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Translated by Columba Hart, and Jane Bishop. New York, Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990.
    Required
  • Abelard, and Heloise. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise . Translated by Betty Radice. London: Penguin, 1974.
    Required
  • Bogin, Meg, ed. The Women Troubadours. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980.
    Required
  • Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France . Translated by Robert Hanning, and Joan Ferrante. Durham NC: Labyrinth Press, 1978.
    Required
  • Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies . Translated by Earl Jeffrey Richards. New York: Persea Books, 1982.
    Required
  • Willard, Charity Cannon, ed. The Writings of Christine de Pizan . New York: Persea Books, 1993.
    Required
  • Joan of Arc. In Her Own Words . Translated by Willard Trask. New York: B. O. O. K. S. and Co., 1996.
    Required
  • Julian of Norwich. Showings. Edited by Edmund Colledge. New York: Paulist Press, 1977.
    Required
  • Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe . Translated by B. A. Windeatt. New York and London: Penguin,1985.
    Required
  • Genesis. 2.4-3:24.
    Listed reading
  • Revelations. 12.
    Listed reading
  • Romans. 5-7.
    Listed reading
  • 1 Corinthians. 7, 14.
    Listed reading
  • 2 Corinthians. 11.
    Listed reading
  • Galatians. 3-4, Ephesians. 5.
    Listed reading
  • 1 Timothy. 2.
    Listed reading
  • Augustine. On the Literal Meaning of Genesis XI. xxxvii. 50, xlii. 58-59.
    Listed reading
  • Jerome. Against Jovinian. Book I.
    Listed reading
  • Paul and Thecla. (LBB)
    Listed reading
  • Perpetua. The Passion of Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas. (MWVL)
    Listed reading
  • Venantius Fortunatus, and Baudonivia. The Life of the Holy Radegund . (SWDA)
    Listed reading
  • Terence. The Eunuch .
    Listed reading
  • Hrotsvit of Gandersheim*. Letter to Patrons;* Dulcitius .
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 5 · TOPICS: Transforming the Past · READINGS: Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. Basilius; Callimachus; Abraham; Sapientia; Thais.
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 6 · TOPICS: The Trivium: Scholasticism and the Literary Curriculum · READINGS: Abelard. Historia Calamitatum .
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 7 · TOPICS: Medieval Rhetoric and the Power of Emotions · READINGS: Abelard, and Heloise. Letters 1-4. · HANDOUTS: ( PDF ) ↗
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 8 · TOPICS: The Self Reformed · READINGS: Abelard, and Heloise. Letters 5-7. Abelard’s Confession of Faith .
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 11 · TOPICS: Courtly Love and Self-presentation · READINGS: Women Troubadours .
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 12 · TOPICS: Romance and Aristocratic Society · READINGS: Marie de France, Lays . “Prologue”; “Guigemar”; “Bisclavret”; and “Lanval.”
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 13 · TOPICS: Adventures on the Celtic Fringe · READINGS: Marie de France, Lays . “Equitan”; “Chaitivel”; and “Eliduc.”
    Reading assignment
  • Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Declaration.
    Listed reading
  • Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Book II, Vision 7.
    Listed reading
  • Elizabeth of Schönau. Visions - Book Two .
    Listed reading
  • Mechthild of Magdeburg. F lowing Light of the Godhead.
    Listed reading
  • Hadewijch of Brabant. Letters to a Young Beguine, Visions .
    Listed reading
  • Beatrijzs of Nazareth. Seven Manners of Loving . (MWVL)
    Listed reading
  • Catherine of Siena. Letters.
    Listed reading
  • Angela of Foligno. The Book of the Experience of the Truly Faithful.
    Listed reading
  • Na Prous Boneta. Confession of Na Prous Boneta.
    Listed reading
  • Marguerite Porete. The Mirror of Simple Souls . (MWVL)
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 18 · TOPICS: Affective Piety and Autobiography · READINGS: Julian of Norwich. Showings .
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 19 · TOPICS: The Disorders of Divine Love · READINGS: Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Proem, Book I, chapters 1-39.
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 20 · TOPICS: Objects of Affection · READINGS: Margery Kempe. The Book of Margery Kempe. Book I, chapters 40-58.
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 21 · TOPICS: Imitations of Love · READINGS: Margery Kempe. The Book of Margery Kempe. Book I, chapters 59-89.
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 22 · TOPICS: Disciplines of the Self · READINGS: Margery Kempe. The Book of Margery Kempe. Book II.
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 23 · TOPICS: Late Medieval Feminism · READINGS: Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies. Part I. · HANDOUTS: ( PDF ) ↗
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 24 · TOPICS: Allegories of Power · READINGS: Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies. Part II, sections 1-43.
    Reading assignment
  • Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies. Part II, sections 44-69.
    Listed reading
  • Christine de Pizan. The Poem of Joan of Arc.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: Not offered Acad Year 2028-2029: U (Spring) 3-0-9 units. HASS-H

Sources