Monsters, Magic, and Medieval Literature

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course takes seriously J.R.R. Tolkien’s claim that “A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or in invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in significance than his barrow is in gold.” Medieval stories are full of magic, wonders, and monsters, from Beowulf’s dragon to the alchemical search for the Philosopher’s Stone in Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. By reading, discussing, and writing about the various monsters and magical apparitions of medieval storytelling we will attempt to inhabit a medieval perspective of the world, in which nature is full of unlikely possibilities and where cultural anxieties about human difference might be made physically manifest, sites of prejudicial fear and genuine curiosity alike. In this class you will read a wide range of stories from the Middle Ages, all featuring either monsters or magic, and often both, as well as cultural criticism which asks us to think about monsters as more than just simple symbols but as sites where cultural anxieties about human difference were actively negotiated, and where the limits and boundaries of what was “natural” and “possible” could be contested and contemplated. You will be tasked with honing your skills in research and close-reading, writing essays with arguments of your own fashioning in which you search through Tolkien’s dragon’s horde of meaning, and offer up the gem of insight you’ve found there.