ENGL 330: Medieval Literature
Course Calendar, Winter, 2019


Class Meetings: MTWR 8:10-9:00 AM, Engineering West 238
Office Hours: TBA 		 Woman Reader (engraving) Dr. Debora B. Schwartz 
e-mail: dschwart@calpoly.edu
Main English Office:  756-2597

Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10

Week 1 (January 7-10)
 

Topic and Readings 
M:
 Course organization and requirements; Introduction to Medieval Textuality (Latin manuscript culture vs. Old English oral traditions)
T: Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and Caedmon's Hymn

Required Background Readings: 

Required Primary Reading (medieval texts): 

  • Bede's Ecclesiastical History / Caedmon's Hymn, NA pp. 30-32
Recommended Background Reading: If you're interested in learning more . . .
  • W. F. Bolton, "The Conditions of Literary Composition in Medieval England" (.PDF file, 15 pp., on e-reserve under Recommended Readings in PolyLearn).  Click HERE for a Study Guide directing you to the most important points in the Bolton reading.

NOTE: Don't forget to fill out and return your First-Day Questionnaire!
W:
 Heroic Values 1:  Pagan and Christian Elements in Old English Dream Vision

Required Background Readings: 
  • Review NA 3-10 (on the notion of the "Middle Ages" and on Anglo-Saxon literature); NA 19 (1st paragraph of "Medieval English"); NA 24 (first paragraphs of "Old and Middle English Prosody")
  • NA 32-33 (Headnote to The Dream of the Rood)
  • Online study guide for The Dream of the Rood (click on link to access study guide, which you should print out and place in your course binder)
Required Primary Readings (medieval texts): 
  • The Dream of the Rood, BOTH of the TWO translations IN THE E-RESERVE FILE ON POLYLEARN:  Alfred David's alliterative verse translation (also found NA 33-36) AND Donaldson's prose translation (.PDF file, 5 pp; for your convenience, this file contains BOTH translations.)  We will begin our discussion by comparing the two translations but thereafter use the PROSE translation on e-reserve, so be sure to bring it with you to class. 
NOTE: Don't forget to fill out and return your First-Day Questionnaire!
Th: Heroic Values 2:  Pagan and Christian Elements in Old English Epic

Required Background Readings: 
  • Review NA 3-10 (on the notion of the "Middle Ages" and on Anglo-Saxon literature); NA Appendix A41 ("Saxons and Danes" only)
  • NA 36-41 (Headnote to Beowulf)
  • Online study guide for Beowulf (click on links to access study guides, which you should print out and place in your course binder)
Required Primary Readings (medieval texts):
  • Beowulf 1 (up to "The Dragon Wakes"), NA 41-88.
NOTE: Don't forget to fill out and return your First-Day Questionnaire!
WEEK 1 Text Info:
  • Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People is a Latin prose history (or "chronicle"), completed in 731, a few years before the death of the Venerable Bede in 735.  It focuses on  the (re-)Christianization of post-Anglo-Saxon-Conquest Britain, in particular the spread of Christianity in England and the growth of the English Church.
  • Caedmon's "Hymn" is the earliest work in Old English which has been preserved.  It was composed orally in Old English alliterative verse by an illiterate cowherd named Caedmon some time between 658 and 680 (i.e. either before Bede's birth, ca. 673, or when Bede was still a small child).
  • The Dream of the Rood is an orally composed Dream Vision in Old English alliterative verse created by an unknown author some time between the 8th and 10th centuries.
  • Beowulf is an orally composed Epic in Old English alliterative verse created by an unknown author some time between the 8th and 10th centuries.
  • The Old English alliterative line is the form of all Ango-Saxon vernacular (Old English) poetry.  While the total syllable count varies from line to line, each alliterative line typically contains four stressed syllables, two of which fall before and two of which fall after a pause in the middle of the line called a medial caesura. The two half lines created by this pause are linked by alliteration:  the two stressed syllables in the first half line typically begin with the same sound as the first, but not the second, stressed syllable in the second half line.  The repeated sound (alliteration) may be a repeated consonant sound or a vowel sound.  NOTE:  all vowels and the consonant "h" are considered to alliterate with each other.

Week 2 (January 14-17)
  

Topic and Readings
M:
 Beowulf, conclusion; Introduction to Anglo-Norman literature

Required Background Readings: 
  • Review Online study guide for Beowulf (click on links to access study guides, which you should print out and place in your course binder)
  • NA 10-13, "Anglo-Norman Literature"
  • On E-reserve in PolyLearn: Translatio Studii et Imperii (.PDF file, 2 dense pages).  NOTE: An online version of this required background reading is used in lecture but should not be printed out because images obscure the text (and would make print-outs very long).  Print out the text-only version on e-reserve, put it in your course binder, and bring it with you to class.
Required Primary Readings (medieval texts):
  • Beowulf (NA 88 -108)
T: Introduction to Anglo-Norman Literature, continued; the notion of Translatio

Required Background Readings:

  • Review NA 10-13, "Anglo-Norman Literature," and e-reserve reading Translatio Studii et Imperii
  • NA 26 (timeline for 1066-1200); NA appendix A41-A42 (House of Normandy, House of Blois, House of Plantagenet); NA 130, headnote "The Myth of Arthur's Return"
  • New online reading: "Medieval Attitudes toward Vernacular Literature" (also serves as Study Guide for the medieval prologues and epilogues by Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes assigned as required Primary Texts; the links on their names below take you directly to the relevant portions of this online reading)
  • New online reading: Virgil's Aeneid and The Romance of Eneas .  NOTE: this is a study guide, created for another class, that compares the Latin and Old French versions of the story of the Trojan prince Aeneas. You are NOT responsible for the excerpts from these two texts, but you ARE responsible for the information ABOUT them on this study guide.   If you are interested, you can access the texts in the Recommended Readings folder on PolyLearn.
Required Primary Readings:
  • Excerpts from Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Layamon (NA 130-131). 
Required Primary Readings: Recommended Primary Readings:
  • Excerpts from Virgil's Aeneid and the anonymous Anglo-Norman Romance of Eneas (.PDF files, on e-reserve in Recommended Readings section of PolyLearn).
NOTE:  Don't forget to fill out and return your First-Day Questionnaire!
W: The effects of the Norman Conquest: Anglo-Norman literature and the development of the Middle English world view

Required Background Readings:

 Required Primary Readings:
  • Marie de France, Lanval (NA 154-67)
Th:
 Introduction to Chaucer and the Middle English world view

Required Background Readings:
  • Review Online Reading: Courtly Love
  • Background on the Middle English period:  NA 13-17, the Fourteenth Century; NA 27 (timeline for fourteenth century).
  • Introduction to Chaucer: background CH 1-13, NA 238-41
  • Online study guides for Chaucer's The Franklin's Tale and for the ballads "Truth" and "Gentilesse"
Required Primary Readings:
  • Chaucer, two lyric poems, the ballads "Truth" and "Gentilesse." Use the translations at CH 602-4 to help you through the Middle English originals:  "Truth" NA 344-45 and "Gentilesse" (click link and PRINT OUT this online reading).  Modern translations: CH  602-4.
  • Chaucer, The Franklin's Tale (CH 292-314)
WEEK 2 Text info:
  • Virgil's Aeneid is a Latin-language epic poem in twelve books written between 29 and 19 BC by the Roman poet Virgil (who lived 70-19 BC)
  • The Romance of Eneas is an Anglo-Norman French-language adaptation of Virgil's epic, written ca. 1160 by an unknown poet working at the Anglo-Norman court of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in England.  It was composed in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, the verse form typical of 12th-century French vernacular literature.  Generically, it is an epic with grafted on romance elements (a central love story; more significant roles played by women) that will later be considered characteristics of the romance genre.  Note that it is called a "romance" only because it was a vernacular narrative in the French language, "romanz," rather than in Latin.
  • Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of England (Historia regum Britanniae) is a (fabricated) chronicle (history) written in Latin prose in 1136 for the Anglo-Norman court.
  • Wace's Romance of Brutus (Roman de Brut) is an Anglo-Norman French translation/adaptation of Geoffrey's Latin chronicle, written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets in 1155 and dedicated to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the queen of England.  Note: the word "romance" in the title merely means that this chronicle is told in the French language, but generically, Wace's text is still a history or chronicle rather than a "romance."
  • Layamon's Brut is a Middle English translation/adaptation of Wace's Romance of Brutus written ca. 1190 in Middle English alliterative verse.  Like Wace's poem, its genre is chronicle or history rather than "romance."
  • A "Prologue" refers to an opening statement made by an author at the beginning of his or her narrative, before the beginning of the story itself.  Medieval authors typically used Prologues (and Epilogues, statements found at the end of a narrative, after the conclusion of the story itself) to talk about what they have written, to explain what they are trying to do, and to stake a claim to literary legitimacy.  Prologues and Epilogues may also be used by authors to dedicate a work to a potential "patron,"  a rich and powerful person whom they hope will reward them for the honor, either financially or by offering them protection or prestige.
  • Chrétien de Troyes was active ca. 1170-1190. While Chréétien lived and worked in France rather than in Anglo-Norman England, his works, like Marie de France's, were enjoyed by French-speaking court audiences on both sides of the English channel.  Also like Marie, his works were written in French octosyllabic rhyming couplets.  We are reading the Prologues to Chrétien's Arthurian romances Erec and Enide and Cligés.
  • Marie de France was active ca. 1160s-1190s at the Anglo-Norman court (i.e. the court of the French-speaking rulers of England, descendants of the Norman Duke William the Conqueror who became King of England after defeating the English king in the Battle of Hastings in 1066).  Marie de France spoke and wrote in French.  Her works are in rhyming verse (specifically, octosyllabic rhyming couplets). We are reading the Prologue and Epilogue to her collection of Fables and the Prologue to her collection of Lais.
  • A lai is a short narrative genre written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets (the form of virtually all 12th-century French literary texts).  These vernacular poems typically focus on the male/female love relationships of courtly (noble) protagonists and usually contain supernatural or fairy-tale elements.  We are reading Marie de France's lai Lanval and Chaucer's adaptation of this genre, which he called a "Breton Lay," The Franklin's Tale.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer lived ca. 1343-1400. The Franklin's Tale dates from the Canterbury Tales period, ca. 1386-1400.  Like our other selections from Chaucer's frame narrative collection, it was originally written in English rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (ten-syllable lines with an alternating pattern of unstressed followed by stressed syllables). Reminder: an "iamb" is a two-syllable unit of verse in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one; five such two-syllable units form an iambic pentameter line with the stress pattern "da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM."

   Looking Ahead:
 Week 3 (January 22 - 24) (NO CLASS MONDAY -- UNIVERSITY HOLIDAY -- but read ahead, as assignment for Tuesday is LONG)

Topic and Readings
T: Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida I: Translatio romance / unreliable narrator

Required Background Reading: 

  • Review background on the Middle English period:  NA 13-17, the Fourteenth Century; NA 27 (timeline for fourteenth century).
  • Review background to Chaucer: CH 1-13, NA 238-41;
  • Introduction to Troilus and Cressida CH 345-353
  • Two Troilus and Cressida handouts on e-reserve in Polylearn (PRINT THEM OUT and bring them with you to class): 1) Introduction to Troilus and Cressida (.PDF file, 9 pp.) and 2) opening stanzas of poem in Middle English (.PDF file, 2 pp.).
  • Primary reading: Troilus and Cressida bks. 1-3, CH 353-471.
W:

 Chaucer's Troilus and  Cressida II: medieval misogyny?

Required Reading:

Recommended Contextual Reading:
  • On e-reserve in Polylearn: Introduction to and Text of the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (.PDF file,12 pp.); see also information at CH 599.
Th:
 Troilus and Cressida wrap-up
Text info:
  • Geoffrey Chaucer lived ca. 1343-1400. Troilus and Cressida was written in the early 1380s and was presumably completed before Chaucer turned his attention to the Canterbury Tales collection (ca. 1386); it is referred to in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, written ca. 1385.   Like the Knight's Tale from the Canterbury Tales, it is an English-language "Romance of Antiquity," or "Translatio Romance," modelled on the 12th-century adaptations of Latin works into the French vernacular (e.g. the Romance of Eneas).  Chaucer's work is set in classical antiquity (during the Trojan War) and draws on classical literary sources and models, but it also borrows freely from earlier vernacular works, e.g. Benoit de Sainte-Maure's 12th-century French Romance of Troy and its primary though unacknowleged source, Boccaccio's Il Filostrato ("The Love-Stricken One"), an Italian work dating from ca. 1336.  For more detail on the sources used by Chaucer, see the Shoaf introduction on e-reserve in PolyLearn.
  • While Troilus and Cressida is generically a romance, note that it was written in English, not French.  By the late 14th century, the term "romance" no longer means "a narrative in the French vernacular"; it refers to a particular genre, a story which typically has a long-ago-and-far-away setting, aristocratic characters, plots involving both love and warfare, and a happy ending.  Romances often draw on the conventions of courtly love, depicting lovers who suffer from lovesickness and express their feelings in flowery speeches.  A common plot line is the winning of a bride by a brave knight through chivalric prowess. 
  • Chaucer's Troilus is written in Rhyme Royal stanzas: seven iambic pentameter lines with the rhyme scheme ABABBCC.

Writing Assignment:

Looking Ahead:

Week 4 (January 28 - 31)


 Topic and Readings
M:
 Middle English Spirituality in the 13th century: Hali Meidhad ("A Letter on Virginity")

Required Background Reading:

Required Primary Reading:
T:
 Middle English Spirituality in the 13th century: Seinte Margarete

Required Background Reading:
  • PW introduction xx-xxv, xxxiv-xxxviii
  • Online reading: study guide for Seinte Margarete
Required Primary Reading:
  • Seinte Margarete, PW 44-85 [NOTE: required reading is the modern translation only, found on odd-numbered pages]
W:
 Middle English Spirituality II: the Pearl Poet and the Alliterative Revival

Required Background Reading:

  • NA 16-17 (paragraph on the Pearl Poet), 24-25 (on Middle English alliterative verse), 27 (timeline for fourteenth century), and 183-5 (headnote to SGGK *ONLY* -- not the text, which we will be reading in Marie Boroff's translation);
  • Marie Boroff's introduction to Pearl, on e-reserve in PolyLearn (PRL vii-xxi , PDF file, 10 pp.); this introduction should be printed out, placed in your course binder, and brought with you to class
  • Online readings: The Alliterative Revival and study guide for Pearl. Also review online readings Introduction to Medieval Allegory and Courtly Love.
Required Primary Reading:
  • Pearl: text of MARIE BOROFF TRANSLATION in supplemental Pearl Poet textbook, or as PDF file (16 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn).  Please PRINT OUT both introduction and text and bring with you to class.
Th:
 Fourteenth-Century Arthurian Romance: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Required Background Reading:

  • NA 16-17 (paragraph on the Pearl Poet), 24-25 (on Middle English alliterative verse), 27 (timeline for fourteenth century), and 183-5 (headnote to SGGK *ONLY* -- not the text, which we will be reading in Marie Boroff's translation);
  • Online readings: study guide for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; also review online readings Translatio (comments on SGGK), The Alliterative Revival, and Courtly Love.
Required Primary Reading:
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight through line 669 (description of the Pentangle on Gawain's shield).  IMPORTANT:  be sure to read the MARIE BOROFF TRANSLATION  on e-reserve in PolyLearn (which you must have access to in class, preferably in hard copy).  Do NOT read the inferior translation by Simon Armitage printed in the 9th edition of the Norton Anthology.
Text info:
  • Hali Meidhad (literally "Holy Maidenhead" [=Virginity]; translated in our textbook under the title "A Letter on Virginity") is a didactic letter based primarily on Latin sources but written in Middle English prose by an unknown author, probably a Dominican monk, in the early 13th century.  It aims to persuade young girls to choose the spiritual path (life as an Anchoress or religious recluse) over the worldly life (as a real-life wife and mother), by drawing comparisons between two potential "bridegrooms": the clearly superior spiritual husband is Jesus Christ, who will make her Queen of Heaven -- a far more pleasant life than that of a typical, real-life 13th-century wife. Like Seinte Margarete and the Ancrene Wisse, it is part of a group of texts collectively referred to as the "Katherine Group."
  • Seinte Margarete is a Middle English prose hagiography (or saint's life) written in the early 13th century by an unknown author, probably a Dominican monk, for a female audience (supposedly, for three sisters who were entering religious life as anchoresses, i.e. religious recluses, but suitable for a broader audience of religious women -- and men).  Its primary source is a Latin hagiography by Mombritius, but the unknown author also draws on a broad range of other works in Latin, English, French, and Welsh.  Like Hali Meidhad and the Ancrene Wisse, it is part of a group of texts collectively referred to as the "Katherine Group."
  • Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are thought to be the work of the same poet, commonly referred to as the Pearl Poet, who was active ca. 1375-1400 and, along with William Langland, was the most important English poet of the Alliterative Revival.  His/her work is preserved in a single manuscript which also contains two biblically inspired poems thought to be the work of the same author. 
  • Pearl is an allegorical dream vision in which a father mourns the death of his two-year-old daughter whose soul appears to teach him important spiritual lessons. While there is alliteration in some lines, the poem is not written in alliterative verse; the complex rhyming structure links 12-line stanzas of rhymed verse in a complicated circular form using concatenation, or overlapping repetition. The poem contains twenty sections, all of which contain five stanzas, with the exception of section 15, which has six stanzas.
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is generically a romance, but note that it was written in English, not French.  By the late 14th century, the term "romance" no longer means "a narrative in the French vernacular"; it refers to a particular genre, a story which typically has a long-ago-and-far-away setting, aristocratic characters, plots involving both love and warfare, and a happy ending.  Romances often draw on the conventions of courtly love.  SGGK has a circular narrative structure; it begins and ends at Arthur's court, where Gawain undertakes his quest, and to which he returns to recount his adventures when the quest is complete.  Formally, in is divided into four sections or "fitts" which combine alliterative and rhymed verse.  The complex hybrid form consists of long stanzas in Middle English Alliterative verse punctuated by shorter passages in rhyme: a two-syllable, one-stress line, called the bob, which rhymes in an ABABA pattern with the following quartrain, called the wheel.

Writing Assignment:

Week 5 (February 4 - 7)
 

Topic and Readings
M:
 Arthurian Romance

 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 670 - conclusion.   IMPORTANT:  be sure to read the MARIE BOROFF TRANSLATION  on e-reserve in PolyLearn (which you must have access to in class, preferably in hard copy).  Do NOT read the inferior translation by Simon Armitage printed in the 9th edition of the Norton Anthology.

Intro to Malory's Le Morte D'arthur.

Required Background Readings: 

Required Primary Readings: 
  • Caxton's preface and the divisions of Malory's Le Morte D'arthur (.PDF file, 3 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn; PRINT OUT and bring with you to class).
  • approximately 90 pages to read while skimming pp. 188-373 in volume 2 of the Penguin Classics edition of Malory's Morte Darthure (a required textbook for this class).  Click for specific reading assignment.
T:
 Arthurian Romance II

Malory's Le Morte D'arthur, cont. Click here for specific reading assignment. 

Required Background Readings:

  • review background readings assigned for last class meeting, NA 17-19, 27-28, 480-82; Introduction to Medieval Allegory; Translatio; and handout (on electronic reserve) containing Caxton's preface and the divisions of Malory's Le Morte D'arthur (PDF file, 3 pp., on e-reserve; bring PRINT-OUT with you to class).

Required Primary Readings: 

  • approximately 100 pages to read while skimming pp. 373-532 in volume 2 of the Penguin Classics edition of Malory's Morte Darthure (a required textbook for this class).Click here for specific reading assignment. 
W:
 GWR Essay Workshop
Th:
 Midterm Part 1: Essay.  Don't forget to bring a LARGE-FORMAT (9x11) exam book with you to class.
Text info:
  • Sir Thomas Malory (lived ca. 1405-1471) wrote the Morte Darthur, a lengthy prose romance in English, while imprisoned in 1469-70.  Malory's primary sources were the early thirteenth-century French prose romances commonly referred to as the "Vulgate Cycle" or "Lancelot-Grail Cycle."  These massive prose romances were the creation of Cistercian monks who reworked what they apparently considered to be "vain and idle" stories set at the Arthurian court in order to connect Arthurian tradition to salvation history, e.g. by sending Arthur's knight on the quest of the Holy Grail. Malory's text has come down to us in two forms:  an early printed book published in 1485 by William Caxton (of which the Preface is an assigned e-reserve reading), and the so-called Winchester Manuscript, discovered in 1934.

Week 6 (February 11 - 14)
 

Topic and Readings
M:
 Midterm Day 2: Objective.  Bring a 100-question scantron with you to class.
T:

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales I: The General Prologue (Frame Narrative and Opening Signals)

Required Readings (including headnotes and linked Study Guides):

  • New Background Readings:  online readings Background to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, General Prologue Study Guide and The Medieval Estates; NA 241-43 (headnotes on the Canterbury Tales collection and the General Prologue) and 19-24 (on Chaucer's English) and 25 (on Chaucer's verse form); NA 340 (headnote on the Close of the Canterbury Tales).  Also consult Chaucer Reading and Pronunciation Tips (.PDF file, 2 pp., one-reserve in Polylearn) and peruse the Map of the Pilgrimage Route/Chart of the Medieval Humors (.PDF file, 2 pp. on e-reserve in Polylearn). 
  • Review NA 13-17 (on the Fourteenth Century), 17 (Timeline for the Fourteenth Century), 238-41 (headnote to Chaucer).
  • Primary Text 1:  General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: read the NA introduction (NA 218), full text in translation (CH 53-75), and the following Middle English lines: GP lines 1-42 (the opening); the portraits of the Knight, Squire, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Clerk, Wife of Bath, Parson, Plowman and Pardoner, GP lines 43-100, 118-271, 287-310, 447-543, 671-716; Chaucer's comments on the "truth" of his fiction, GP lines 717-49; and the set-up of the story-telling contest, GP lines 771-82. (Full Middle English text of the GP is found NA 243-63).
For this and all other readings from the Canterbury Tales, you can get the gist of the stories from the modern English translation (in the Portable Chaucer = CH). Lectures will point to lines in the assigned Middle English passages in the Norton Anthology , so after reading the translation, you are ALSO expected to read through specific lines in the Middle English text  (hint: try reading aloud!).   Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to Canterbury Tales class meetings.
W: The General Prologue (Estates Satire; Pilgrim Portraits)
Th:
 The General Prologue (Estates Satire; Pilgrim Portraits)
Text Info:
  • The Canterbury Tales (taken as a whole) is a "frame narrative" collection on which Chaucer worked during the last 14 years of his life (ca. 1386-1400).  Use this blanket date for all Canterbury Tales selections EXCEPT the Knight's Tale. 
  • A "frame narrative" is a work in which a group of story-tellers tell stories to each other. The individual stories that they tell are embedded within the narrative framework, which in the case of the Canterbury Tales is a pilgrimage to visit the shrine of St. Thomas â Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
  • The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales sets up the narrative framework of the collection.  It also functions independently as an example of the medieval genre known as Estates Satire. (See the online reading The Medieval Estates.) 
  • All 82 manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales begin with the General Prologue, followed by the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's Tale and the Cook's Tale, which are are "glued together" by the dialogue between them.  Critics refer to this "chunk" of text as "Fragment 1."

Looking Ahead:

Week 7 (February 19 - 21) (NO CLASS MONDAY -- UNIVERSITY HOLIDAY)


Topic and Readings
T:
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales II: The Knight's Tale as Translatio Romance

Required Background and Primary Readings:

  • Online ENGL 252 Study Guide for The Knight's Tale; Helen Cooper on the Structure of the Knight's Tale (.PDF file, 2 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn)
  • primary text CH 76-123 (not in NA, but see the summary at NA 263)
 Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to all Canterbury Tales class meetings.
W:

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales III:  The Miller's Tale

Required Background and Primary Readings (including NA headnotes and online Study Guides):

  • Online reading: ENGL 512 The Miller's Tale Study Guide; CH 123-143; Middle English text of lines MT 12-35, 59-78, 113-185, 204-282, 379-446, 493-521, 563-633, 682-746 (full text of the Miller's Prologue and Tale is found NA 264-80); 
  • Online reading: ENGL 252 STUDY GUIDE TO THE MILLER'S TALE, which draws specific comparisons between the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale
Recommended background readings:
  • Pronunciation Tips for Chaucer's Middle English (.PDF file, 2 pp.; on e-reserve in PolyLearn); Fuller Description of Chaucer's Middle English, NA 19 (bottom) - 24 (top); The Chaucer Metapage's Chaucer's English web resourcese
Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to all Canterbury Tales class meetings.
Th:
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales IVa: The Wife of Bath's Prologue (Literary Confession)

Required Background and Primary Readings (including NA headnotes and online Study Guides):

Recommended background readings:
  • Pronunciation Tips for Chaucer's Middle English (.PDF file, 2 pp.; on e-reserve in PolyLearn); Fuller Description of Chaucer's Middle English, NA 19 (bottom) - 24 (top); The Chaucer Metapage's Chaucer's English web resources
  • Ruth Mazo Karas on masculine identity formation in the medieval universities (.PDF file, 9 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn under Recommended Readings)
Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to all Canterbury Tales class meetings.
Text Info:
  • The Knight's Tale is a romance, but note that it was written in English, not French.  By the late 14th-century, the term "romance" no longer means "a narrative in the French vernacular"; it refers to a particular genre, a story which typically has a long-ago-and-far-away setting, aristocratic characters, plots involving both love and warfare, and a happy ending.  Romances often draw on the conventions of courtly love, depicting lovers who suffer from lovesickness and express their feelings in flowery speeches.  A common plot line is the winning of a bride by a brave knight through chivalric prowess.  The Knight's Tale was originally written ca. 1384-5, before Chaucer began work on the Canterbury Tales collection. (In the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, written ca. 1385, he refers to this poem as Palamon and Arcite.)  Chaucer apparently considered this "translatio romance" to be an appropriate tale for his Knight and a fitting beginning to the Canterbury Tales as a whole when he chose to incorporate it into his frame narrative collection. The primary source of the Knight's Tale is an Italian poem by Boccaccio called Il Teseida (the "Story of Theseus"); other sources include Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (a 5th-century Latin philosophical work which Chaucer had previously translated into English); the Thebaid (a Latin work about Thebes written by Statius in the first century); and the Romance of Thebes (an anonymous mid-twelfth-century French "translatio" of the Thebaid written, like the Romance of Eneas, for the Anglo-Norman court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine).
  • Chaucer's Miller's Tale is a fabliau, a French genre most popular in the 13th century that is adapted into English by Chaucer.  These short humorous narratives are characterized by a "here and now" setting (not the "long ago and far away" of romance); middle-class characters (not the aristocrats of romance); earthiness of tone and subject matter; an emphasis on the body in all its physicality -- sex, defecation, farting, the appetites -- rather than the emotions or the spiritual; and coarse language (rather than the flowery language often used in romance). Fabliaux (plural form) tend to flout authorities of all sorts and are frequently subversive. Characters are often "tricksters" admired for their cleverness; a common theme is the gleeful adultery of a repressed wife and a clever cleric. (For fuller information, see the beginning of the  Miller's Tale study guide; some Old French fabliaux are on e-reserve in the Supplemental Readings folder in PolyLearn.)
  • All 82 manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales begin with the General Prologue, followed by the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Reeve's Tale and the Cook's Tale, which are are "glued together" by the dialogue between them.  Critics refer to this "chunk" of text as "Fragment 1."
  • The Wife of Bath's Prologue is a literary confession or "apology," a first-person narrative in which a character explains his or her character and motivation. (Note that despite the modern connotations, these terms do not imply the speaker's sense of guilt or regret about the behavior described.)
  • The Wife of Bath's Tale is a miniature Arthurian romance, with a setting in the distant past, aristocratic characters, magical events, and a happy ending. The structure is circular, beginning and ending at Arthur's court, where a knight undertakes a quest and to which he returns when the quest is complete.

Week 8 (February 25 - 28)
 

Topic and Readings
M: Wife of Bath's Tale
Online readings: ENGL 252 Wife of Bath Study Guide; ENGL 512 The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale Study Guide; CH 207-240; Middle English text of WBT lines 863-918, 989-1182, 1225-1270 (full text of the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale is found NA 282-310).
T:

Nun's Priest's Tale


 Canterbury Tales V: Beast Fable

Required Background and Primary Readings (including NA headnotes and online Study Guides): 

  • Online Reading: The Nun's Priest's Tale Study Guide; CH 186-206; headnote NA 326; Middle English text of lines NPT 27-123, 150-165, 188-204, 230-243, 266-289, 302-358, 431-517, 535-626 (full text of the Nun's Priest's Tale is found NA 326-40).
Recommended background readings:
  • Pronunciation Tips for Chaucer's Middle English (.PDF file, 2 pp.; on e-reserve in PolyLearn); Fuller Description of Chaucer's Middle English, NA 19 (bottom) - 24 (top); The Chaucer Metapage's Chaucer's English web resourcese
Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to all Canterbury Tales class meetings.
W: Pardoner's Prologue and Tale

Canterbury Tales V: Literary Confession and Exemplum

Required Background and Primary Readings (including NA headnotes and online Study Guides):

  • Online Reading: The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale Study Guide; CH 316-335; headnote NA 310-11; Middle English text of lines PT 30-174 (from the Introduction and Prologue); PT 175-199, 210-224, 259-271, 301-314, 341-359, 373-390, 404-600, 616-630 (from the Tale); PT 631-667 (from the Epilogue).  Full text of the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale is found NA 311-26.
Recommended background readings:
  • Pronunciation Tips for Chaucer's Middle English (.PDF file, 2 pp.; on e-reserve in PolyLearn); Fuller Description of Chaucer's Middle English, NA 19 (bottom) - 24 (top); The Chaucer Metapage's Chaucer's English web resourcese
Please bring BOTH NA and PC with you to all Canterbury Tales class meetings.
Th:
 Canterbury Tales Wrap-Up: Prologue to the Parson's Tale and Chaucer's Retraction


  • Primary Text:  Frame Narrative:  read NA 340-43 on the Close of the Canterbury Tales; then read the Prologue/Introduction (only) to the Parson's Tale and full text of Chaucer's Retraction, both in translation (CH 339-342) and in Middle English (NA 340-43).


    		•
    Text Info: 
    • The Wife of Bath's Prologue is a literary confession or "apology," a first-person narrative in which a character explains his or her character and motivation. (Note that despite the modern connotations, these terms do not imply the speaker's sense of guilt or regret about the behavior described.)
    • The Wife of Bath's Tale is a miniature Arthurian romance, with a setting in the distant past, aristocratic characters, magical events, and a happy ending. The structure is circular, beginning and ending at Arthur's court, where a knight undertakes a quest and to which he returns when the quest is complete.
    • The Nun's Priest's Tale is a Beast Fable, a short narrative in which personified animals stand in for recognizable human character types. While they are frequently followed by a moral, they are not typically allegorical.  Aesop's Fables, known to medieval poets only through Latin translations, were the primary classical models; there were also vernacular adaptations such as Marie de France's Fables (of which we read the Prologue and Epilogue early this quarter). 
    • The Pardoner's Prologue is another example of the literary confession or "apology," a first-person narrative in which a character explains his or her character and motivation. (Note that despite the modern connotations, these terms do not imply the speaker's sense of guilt or regret about the behavior described.)
    • The Pardoner's Tale is an exemplum, a story illustrating the main point of a sermon.
    • The Parson's Tale is a "penitential treatise," a genre which teaches people how to repent for their sins so that they will be prepared for Judgment Day and can hope for salvation rather than damnation.  We are reading: the full text of the Parson's Prologue, in which the Parson redefines the pilgrimage as a metaphorical journey to "celestial . . . Jerusalem" (i.e. salvation); the summary of the Parson's Tale; and Chaucer's "Retraction."  All 82 manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales end with this "chunk" of texts, which critics refer to as "Fragment 10.

    Writing Assignment:

    Looking Ahead:

    Week 9  (March 4 - 7)


    		Topic and Readings
    M:
    		 Context for Julian of Norwich: The 13th-century Ancrene Wisse
    • Background:  NA 13 (paragraph beginning "There is also a body of Early Middle English religious prose..."); NA 137-8 (headnote to Ancrene Wisse); NA  395-6 (on "Christ's Humanity"); PW Introduction xxix-xxxviii; online reading: Ancrene Wisse study guide; review Medieval Allegory.
    • Primary Text: Ancrene Wisse (parts 7 and 8), PW 110-149 [NOTE: required reading is the modern translation only, found on odd-numbered pages]
    T: The Human Side of God: 15the-Century Women Mystics 1, Julian of Norwich

    Required Readings:

    • Background: NA 17-18 (paragraphs mentioning Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe); NA 395-6 (on "Christ's Humanity"); NA 412-3 (headnote to Julian of Norwich); online reading: Women Mystics study guide
    • Primary Text:  Julian of Norwich, A Book of Showings, selections NA 414-24
    W:
    		 The Human Side of God: 15th-century Women Mystics 2, Margery Kempe

    Required Readings:

    • Background: NA 17-18 (paragraphs mentioning Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe); review NA 395-6 (on "Christ's Humanity"); NA 424-5 (headnote to  Margery Kempe); online reading: Women Mystics study guide
    • Primary Text: Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe, selections NA 425-38; Supplemental (but REQUIRED) Margery Kempe readings (episodes found in NA, 7th ed., pp. 371-2 and 374-7): "A Visit with Julian of Norwich" and "Examination before the Archbishop" (.PDF file, 3 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn; PRINT OUT AND BRING WITH YOU TO CLASS)
    Th:
    		 The Human Side of God: Medieval Lyrics

    Required Readings:

    • Background:  NA 395-6 (on "Christ's Humanity"); NA 408-9 (headnote to Middle English Incarnation and Crucifixion Lyrics); online reading: Medieval Lyrics study guide; browse through the images found on my page on medieval iconography
    • Primary texts:  all Middle English Incarnation and Crucifixion lyrics, NA 409-11, and additional Marian lyrics (online reading).

    		Text Info:
    • The Ancrene Wisse, ("Wisdom/Knowledge for Anchoresses"), also called the Ancrene Riwle ("Rules for Anchoresses"), is an early 13th-century work in Middle English prose by an unknown author, probably a Dominican monk, and possibly also the author of the associated works from the so-called "Katherine Group," Hali Meidhad and Seinte Margarete. (The three works were certainly written for the same target audience.)  It presents a set of rules to govern the lives of Anchoresses, with primary focus on their spiritual life (the so-called "Inner Rule") rather than their physical existence (behavior, dress, diet, activities, etc., the so-called "Outer Rule").
    • Julian of Norwich lived from 1342 to ca. 1416. The Book of Showings, written in English prose, dates from ca. 1390.  It is an account of sixteen mystical visions she says she received in 1373 and meditated on over the course of almost twenty years as an Anchoress, or religious recluse.  The text exists in both shorter and longer forms.  It is an important piece of late medieval religious mysticism and in certain respects a spiritual autobiography.
    • The Book of Margery Kempe is a work of spiritual autobiography dating from 1436-8.  Its author, Margery Kempe, was an illiterate housewife who lived ca. 1373-1438; she dictated her book to two priests who served as her scribes (and may have helped edit her book, but who were NOT its authors).
    • Only two assigned lyrics are of known authorship:  "What is he, this lordling, that cometh from the fight" (NA 409-10) is by William Herebert and dates from the early fourteenth century, before 1333 (the year of Herebert's death); the online reading "Sainte Marie viergene" is by Saint Godric and dates from the late twelfth century.  The other assigned lyrics are of unknown authorship. Do not worry about dates for the other poems in the NA. From the online reading, the anonymous lyric "Gabriel fram heven-king" dates from the early thirteenth century, "Lullay, Lullay" from the fourteenth century, and "Ther is no rose of swych virtu" from the fifteenth century.

    Writing Assignment:

    Looking Ahead:

    Week 10 (March 11 - 14)
     

    		Topic and Readings
    M:
    		 Medieval Lyrics, conclusion
    T:
    Liturgical Drama I: Mystery Play Cycles and The Second Shepherds' Play

    New Required Readings:

    • Background:  NA 18 (paragraph beginning "Social, economic and literary life. . ."); introduction to Mystery Plays and headnote to The Second Shepherds' Play (NA 447-9); NA 439 (headnote to The York Play of the Crucifixion, but not the play itself); "table of contents" of the full N-Town Mystery Cycle on the last page of the .PDF file listed below; online reading: The Second Shepherds' Play study guide.
    • Primary Text: The Second Shepherds' Play,  NA 450-77.
    Also Recommended:
    • Creation of the World and Fall of Man from the N-Town Plays (a cycle of mystery plays), ed. Douglas Sugano (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 207), pp. 31-39 (.PDF file, 5 pp., on e-reserve in Polylearn).
    W:
    		 Mystery Play Cycles and The Second Shepherds' Play, conclusion
    Th:
    		 Liturgical Drama II:  Morality Plays

    Required Readings:

    REVISED PAPER DUE along with HARD COPY of the original ME with your Peer Reviewer's editing suggestions, filled out Essay Evaluation checklist, and final comment.  NOTE:  You MUST turn in hard copy of the peer-reviewed ME in order for your Peer Reviewer to receive credit for the assignment. In addition to these hard copies, please submit an electronic copy of your final paper to me as an email attachment under the filename "[yourlastname]330Paper.docx"


    		Text Info:
    • The Second Shepherds' Play was written ca. 1475 by an unknown author referred to as the Wakefield Master.  This Mystery Play connects the scriptural account of Christ's Nativity and the Angel's Annunciation to the Shepherds of Christ's Birth to the lives of ordinary 15th-century people. It is written in "thirteeners," 13-line rhyming stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABAB ABAB CDDDC, in which the first "C" rhyme line is frequently shorter than the other lines.
    • "Mystery Plays"are dramatized scripture used to teach salvation history to the illiterate. They were performed by Guilds (something like a modern trade union crossed with the Rotary Club). To be effective, a Mystery Play needed to be entertaining, but its underlying purpose was serious: to engage the interest and understanding of the audience in order to help them be better Christians.
    • Mystery plays came in CYCLES: a series of plays which together were meant to present ALL OF SACRED HISTORY, from the Creation of the World through the End of Time (the Last Judgment), with particular emphasis on human history: the Fall of mankind and how Original Sin was redeemed through the Nativity, Incarnation and Passion of Christ.
    • Everyman is a morality play by an unknown author which may have been adapted from a Flemish original.  It is in English rhymed verse and dates from after 1485.  Morality plays were popular in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and Everyman was performed well into the period commonly referred to as the Renaissance. 
    • A morality play is dramatized allegory. The usual subject is the saving of a human soul, and the central figure is Man in the sense of humanity in general (e.g. Everyman). In a typical morality play, the forces of Good and Evil are engaged in a struggle for the soul of an individual, a struggle called a psychomachia (Greek for "war over [or in] the soul"). Morality plays spoke to medieval man's anxiety about being prepared for death, or "dying well"; they offer their audience a sort of ars moriendi (Latin for "the art of dying [well]"). Thus, while the timespan covered by a cycle of mystery plays is literally all of sacred history--from Creation, to the Fall (eating the apple in the Garden of Eden), to other Old Testament events (e.g. Noah's Flood), to the New Testament events of Christ's Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection, to the Last Judgment and the end of time-- the timespan of a morality play is one human life. 

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