ENH4800

Middle English literature

C Stevenson

12 points - 3 hours per week - First semester - Clayton - Pre- or corequisites: ENH2190/ENH3190 and ENH3390

Objectives Students taking this subject should develop skills in reading and analysing the language of Middle English at a more advanced level than that required for ENH3390, with a consequent capacity to read in their original language the complex and substantial literary texts prescribed for study; a broad knowledge of the historical and cultural background of these texts; knowledge and understanding of medieval literary genres and in particular the nature of and conventions used in medieval English religious and secular dream visions and allegories.

Synopsis A study of later Middle English narrative and dramatic texts which operate within the non-realistic frames and conventions of allegory and dream-vision.The literature is read in the original language and discussed in their linguistic and cultural context. Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain-poet are studied as the major authors.

Assessment Essay (4000 words): 40% Essay (4000 words): 40% Seminar assessment (1000 words): 20%

Prescribed texts

Chaucer The Riverside Chaucer ed. L Benson, OUP, 1988
James I of Scotland The Kingis Quhair ed. Norton-Smith, OUP, 1971
Langland W The Vision of Piers Plowman: A complete edition of the b-text ed. Schmidt, Dent, 1987
'Mankind' ed. Stevenson, Monash U, 1995
'Pearl' in Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ed. Cawley and Anderson, Dent, 1991

Recommended texts

Ackerman R W Backgrounds to medieval English literature Random House, 1966
Coote S English literature of the Middle Ages Penguin, 1988

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