Legends, Gods, and Heroes

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Why did the Middle Ages produce so many legends, so many stories about gods, heroes, and fantastic events? What do the origins of these stories tell us about medieval European culture and the way it used both writing and the fantastic? What do the differences between different versions of the same story reveal about the stories' audience and composition? Why do some of these stories still resonate powerfully today? These are the kinds of questions we will ask as we survey a range of medieval works representing a variety of literary traditions, including Anglo-Saxon (Beowulf), Norse (the Poetic Edda and Hrolf Kraki's Saga), French (the Song of Roland), Italian (the Inferno), Welsh (the Mabinogion), and Finnish (Kalevala).