English & American Literature

Bestiaries: The Medieval Book of Beasts

mlillywhite@middlebury.edu — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 08:15:50 +0000

Bestiaries: The Medieval Book of Beasts ENAM 0990 mlillywhite@mi… Thu, 02/18/2021 - 03:15 Seminars English & American Literature Literary Studies Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only subject to sufficient student demand. Have you ever suspected someone of crying crocodile tears? Or perhaps you have heard of halcyon days? Or have a belief that elephants are afraid of mice? All of these ideas, and so many besides, have their origin in the medieval bestiary, and its source, The Physiologus. The bestiaries are an influential genre of medieval writing that instructs readers to look at the natural world like a book and to interpret animal characteristics as symbols of spiritual truth. Upwards of fifty different bestiary manuscripts survive, widely translated into vernacular European languages (especially Middle English and Middle French), as well as Latin. Each of these is a catalogue of real and imaginary beasts, trees and stones, providing morals on the basis of their characteristics. Bestiaries vary in richness of illumination, some made as intricate devotional tools, some for private display of wealth, and some appear to have been illustrated with illiterate audiences in mind. The images accompanying the text are part of the fundamental function of these books, and many of these narrative images were copied and survive on their own in other places, such as carvings, statues and buildings across Europe (one famous example being the London Underground Station, Elephant & Castle).

Bestiaries can be fascinating because of their illuminations (which are often fantastical and glorious) or the strangeness of the moralistic stories they tell about animals. In this course we will see how their influence goes far deeper than this, exploring the workings of nature as sign in medieval culture, the social history of ‘animal stories’, the bestiaries as a window into the intricacies of medieval textual transmission, and the influence of the bestiary on the forms in which natural scientific knowledge is expressed. Whilst the ‘heyday’ of the Latin bestiary in Western Europe (especially England) was in the 12-13^th centuries, they depended upon earlier sources, especially the Physiologus (Alexandria translated into Latin c. 2-4^th Century) and Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae (8^thCentury), and new bestiaries were made throughout the later medieval period. Through weekly seminars focusing on specific bestiary manuscripts and related texts, this course will examine the evolving bestiary across the full medieval period and provide an opportunity to consider its echoes today. We will approach the bestiary with a global perspective and encourage intersectional consideration of these texts in relation to contemporary identities.

Students will work with bestiaries in many languages, including Latin, Old and Middle English, Middle French. This course will also make use of the rich resources of the special collections of the Oxford college libraries and Bodleian collections, including detailed digital facsimiles.

Vikings, Saxons and Heroic Culture

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Vikings, Saxons and Heroic Culture HIST 0825/ENAM 0825/LITS 0825 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Seminars English & American Literature History Literary Studies Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only subject to sufficient student demand. This seminar course explores early medieval heroic culture and beliefs from northern and western Europe, as presented in both older and later (West and North Germanic) literature and legend. It examines the historical background and related archaeological evidence as well as the ideological influences which shaped the texts. The seminar involves reading primary sources in translation.

Sample Syllabus:

Introduction to Viking Literature and Culture
The Gods - The Mythological Poems of the Poetic Edda
The Heroes - The Heroic Poems of the Poetic Edda; Völsunga saga (and its historical background)
The Saga - Gísla saga
Introduction to Old English Literature and Anglo-Saxon Culture
Legendary Heroes: Waldere, Widsith, Finnsburgh; Beowulf (with sources and analogues)
Historical Heroes: The Battle of Maldon, Brunnanburgh and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Christian Heroes: The Dream of the Rood, Edmund, Judith
The Hildebrandslied with Scandinavian/Old Irish/Middle English analogues
The Nibelungenlied

Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Comedies

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Comedies ENAM 0835 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Seminars English & American Literature Theatre Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Each seminar runs only if there is sufficient student demand. Shakespeare’s career from 1600 is renowned for its deep analysis of the human capacity for depravity and for ruin. The seminar examines this increasingly sombre mood, contemporary with Elizabeth’s last years and the developing sense in England of what is often described as a ‘Counter-Renaissance’. We will read a problematic late comedy before approaching four of the great tragedies. These provide analyses of the human capacity to err disastrously in a manner that had been unmatched since ancient Athens. Yet at the end of his public career, Shakespeare discovered a new balance, and the course will conclude with a look at the late ‘tragicomic’ plays.

Sample Syllabus:

Introducing Shakespeare
Twelfth Night
All’s Well that Ends Well
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest

Medieval English Mystics

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Medieval English Mystics RELI 0110 / ENAM 0110 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature History Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Some of the most profound and extraordinary spiritual works of the middle ages were written in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A combination of often horrifically troubled times, the desire for new forms of religion and a new immediacy of relation with God, and socio-economic and literary change contributed to the complex and fascinating picture; but these mystics were very remarkable individuals in their own right, and advocated very different approaches to Christian living and experience. This course therefore exploresnot only of their writings, but also of the context in which they arose.

Sample Syllabus

Literary & Historical Contexts
Richard Rolle’s Fire of Love
Rolle’s English Writings and Wider Influence
The Cloud of Unknowing
Dionise Hid Divinite and Other Cloud-related Treatises
Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection
Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love
Margery Kempe and her Book

Introductory Reading

Watson, N., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Wallace, D. (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 539-65
Edwards, A.S.G. (ed.), A Companion to Middle English Prose. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2004
Sutherland, A., ‘The Middle English Mystics’, in Lemon, R. et al. (eds), The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
Glasscoe, M. (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England. Various publishers, 6 vols, 1980-99
Hudson, A. The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988
Windeatt, B. (ed.), English Mystics of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Tragedy

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Tragedy LITS 0320 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

The course explores the nature and forms of tragedy – one of the foundational literary modes of western culture since antiquity. From the earliest statements about tragic theory as set down by Aristotle and embodied in Greek drama, to a reconsideration of tragedy during the English and French Renaissance, key examples of the form are studied in order to ascertain the meaning of tragedy and the various ways in which it sought expression.

Sample Topics:

Aristotle, Poetics
Aeschylus, Oresteia
Euripides, The Trojan Women
Sophocles, Theban Plays
Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Corneille, Le Cid
Racine, Phèdre

Introductory Reading:

Draper, R., Tragedy: Developments in Criticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1980
Easterling, P.E., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997
Poole, A., Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Comedy

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Comedy LITS 0310 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Spring 2023

The course explores the many types, styles and intentions of comedy in the western European literary tradition, from the earliest Greek and Roman examples of the genre, through the transformations made in the Renaissance by Shakespeare, to the ‘classical’ variants found in Jonson and Molière. Individual works are studied for their own merits as well as the light they shed on the evolution of comedy as a force in culture.

Sample Topics:

Aristophanes, Clouds, Lysistrata
Menander, The Girl From Samos
Plautus, Miles Gloriosus
Terence, The Eunuch
Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing
Jonson, Volpone
Molière, The Miser

Introductory Reading:

Bevis, M., Comedy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 201
Lowe, N.J., Comedy (New Surveys in the Classics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Salingar, L., Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976

Chivalric Literature

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Chivalric Literature LITS 0180 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, chivalry developed as a distinct set of sensibilities within the western European elite. Chivalric values were martial, Christian, noble, and masculine. They did not remain static, but over time became increasingly highly elaborated, more courtly, and more intensely Christian. These social and cultural attitudes were formulated, explored and at times critiqued in the epic and romance vernacular literature of this period, in particular the Arthurian cycle, and the Matter of France. This course explores that literature in social and cultural context.

Sample Topics

La Chanson de Roland
Marie de France, Lais
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances
Raoul de Cambrai
Wolfran von Escehenbach, Parzival
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan
The Poem of The Cid
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle

Medieval Travel Writing

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Medieval Travel Writing LITS 0170 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course examines examples of travel writing from various medieval European languages. Medieval people travelled widely, for a variety of reasons: trade, diplomacy, religious pilgrimage, the lure of the unknown. Some wrote fascinating accounts of their travels and adventures. These narratives are accompanied by accounts of purely imaginary voyages, and of fantastical peoples, kingdoms and marvels.

Sample Topics

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
Marco Polo, Travels
The Travels of Ibn Battuta
travel writings of Petrarch
pilgrimage narratives

Introductory Reading.

Agapitos, P.A. and L.B. Mortensen, eds, Medieval Narratives Between History and Fiction: From the Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c.1100-1400. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013
Ohler, N., The Medieval Traveller. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989
Tomasch, S. and S. Gilles, eds, Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997

Courtly Love

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Courtly Love LITS 0160 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course delves into the Medieval European convention of courtly love, or amour courtois, as it was first labelled by Gaston Paris in the nineteenth century.

Sample Syllabus

Andreas Capellanus, On Love
The Romance of the Rose
Geoffrey Chaucer, dream visions: Book of the Duchess; Parliament of Fowls
Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Filostrato (translated approximately as “laid prostrate by love”).
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Christine de Pizan, The Letter of the God of Love.
Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion; Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolt
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), Il Canzoniere (The Song Book)
Modern construction of medieval Courtly Love tropes: C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love

Medieval Romance

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:20:53 +0000

Medieval Romance LITS 0150 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

The core of this examination of medieval romance literature focuses on canonical Middle English texts, metrical romances and the work of Malory. These are studied alongside major works in the European tradition, such as Old French and Middle High German Arthurian romances, in order to achieve the broadest possible coverage of the subject and its suggestive interrelations.

Sample Syllabus:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances;
Hartmann von Aue, selections
Gottfried von Strassburg, selections
Thomas Malory Morte Darthur