Literary Studies

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

Women & Literature in the Middle Ages

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

Women & Literature in the Middle Ages LITS 0130 / GSFS 0130 / ENAM 0130 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies Literary Studies Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

This course brings together diverse genres and texts in order to examine how women were represented in Western European Medieval Literature, and particularly to introduce a rich array of writing by women. The place of women in European society throughout the Middle Ages was often in direct relation to biblical texts, which frequently emphasised primacy of men over women, and balanced understanding of femininity between the absolute archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary. Nonetheless some women exercised remarkable degrees of power in religious, political and domestic realms, both working within and against legal limitations. Women often made practical choices between marriage and taking the veil as a nun or anchoress, but in some cases and alternative way seems to have been found, such as the extraordinary travelling life of Margery Kempe. Women’s writing is frequently composed in the vernacular, whether French, Middle English, German, etc, and often that which survives is written by wealthier or noble individuals. As required this course may also incorporate historical and archaeological sources in order to better trace the lives of ordinary women, who frequently lived and died without leaving a textual record.

This course explores a mixture of genres, which might include hagiography, life-writing, mystical spiritualism, lyrics, letters, homilies and dream vision, ranging across poetry, prose and, if desired, drama. Texts will be read in translation from Anglo Norman, French, Middle English, and Latin, with some opportunity to get to grips with the original language in consultation with your tutor.

Sample Syllabus

A selection of anonymous Marian devotional lyrics
Marie de France, Lais
Ancrene Wisse
The Katherine Group and the Wooing Group
The Life of Christina of Markyate
The Paston Letters
Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Julian of Norwich, Shewings or Revelations of Divine Love
Guillaume Lorris/Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose (likely paired with Christine de Pizan, Epistre au Dieu d’Amours)
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale; The Clerk’s Tale; The Merchant’s Tale; The Miller’s Tale

The Printing Revolution

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

The Printing Revolution HIST 0486 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Tutorials English & American Literature History History of Art & Architecture Literary Studies Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025 Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

Before the Internet, there was the printing press. Exploited by some as an engine of reform, and condemned by others as the end of knowledge itself, ‘the art of artificial writing’ had revolutionary consequences for Europe. From its arrival in the 1440s, we find entrepreneurs using fonts to imitate manuscripts, but in numbers never attainable by the scribes that preceded them. During the Reformation, the technology was put to ideological ends by both establishment and anti-establishment authors. Printing also left its mark on language and literature: in the earliest English printed books we find editors grappling with a multiplicity of dialects that eventually becomes standardized, while some poets actively shunned the medium, seeing it as inherently prone to error. This course includes an introduction to the practical study of books as objects: how they were made, and how we interpret the variety of fonts and marginalia found in them. Students will have the opportunity to work with the rich resources on offer both through the Bodleian libraries and within our own collection of early printed books and manuscripts in the Feneley Library.

Europe and the World

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

Europe and the World CLAS / ENAM / HIST / GSFS / HARC / LITS / MUSC / PHIL / PSCI / RELI 2499 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Research English & American Literature History History of Art & Architecture Literary Studies Music Philosophy Spring 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025 Spring 2026

The spring semester Research Course takes place after the term’s tutorials and seminars are complete, in the last month of the semester. This course is an opportunity to explore western European encounters with the rest of the world: historical and imaginative, understandings and misunderstandings. You will identify a text or image, object or building that you wish to explore (or a small group: for instance a selection of poems by a given author). These sources must have been produced between the classical era and c. 1800. You will formulate a question and write a 6,000 word essay. Lectures and field trips will help to get you thinking. Once you have identified the area you wish to work on, you will have weekly one-to-one meetings with an individual supervisor, who will also read and comment on your final draft. This project will help you develop the research and writing skills needed for senior theses, graduate work, and similar challenges ahead. Working with texts in translation is expected: many students work with translations from Latin and other languages. If you do wish to work in a language other than English that is welcome, but this will not automatically receive a higher grade. There is no textbook for this course, and you will not be under any obligation to purchase any volumes (although you may wish to do so). The resources of the Bodleian Library, Keble College Library, and the Feneley Library will almost always suffice.

Your research might touch on topics such as the crusades, conversion, gender, exploration, colonialism, Orientalism, or the ‘noble savage’. The concepts of ‘Europe’ and ‘western Europe’ are themselves historically contingent, and had little resonance within most of the period of study. This course also provides an opportunity to look at the construction of ‘outsiders’ within the area that would become regarded as Europe, including classical ‘barbarians’ (in Herodotus or Tacitus, for example), medieval ‘heathens’ and ‘savages’ (such as the vikings), and those who fell outside the mainstream of western Europe: Muslims, Greeks, and Jews and heretics. Note that projects which focus exclusively on elite culture in Anglophone North America might not fall within the parameters of this course.

The Making of Europe

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

The Making of Europe CLAS / ENAM / HIST / GSFS / HARC / LITS / MUSC / PHIL / PSCI / RELI 2499 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/13/2020 - 16:20 Research Classics Comparative Literature Economics English & American Literature Film & Media Culture Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies History History of Art & Architecture Literary Studies Philosophy Political Science Religion Theatre Autumn 2022 Autumn 2023 Autumn 2024 Autumn 2025

The autumn semester Research Course occupies the first five weeks of the program. This will allow you to research a topic of your choice from any area of European history or culture in the period up to c.1750. You will identify a text or image, object or building you wish to explore (or a small group: for instance a selection of poems by a given author). You will formulate a question and write a 6,000 word essay. Some classes and field trips will help to get you thinking. Once you have identified the area you wish to work on, you will have weekly one-to-one meetings with an individual supervisor, who will also read and comment on your final draft. This project will help you with your tutorial writing later in our programme. It will also help you develop the research and writing skills needed for senior theses, graduate work, and similar challenges ahead.

There is no obligatory preparatory reading for this course. Anything written in Europe before c.1750 that captures your imagination would be worth looking at. Working with texts in translation is expected: many students work with translations from Latin and other languages. If you do wish to work in a language other than English that is welcome, to, but this will not automatically receive a higher grade. There is no textbook for this course, and you will not be under any obligation to purchase any volumes (although you may wish to do so). The resources of the Bodleian Library, Keble College Library, and the Feneley Library will almost always suffice.