Middle English literature
C Stevenson
12 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
*
Pre- or corequisites: ENH2190/3190 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 its 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. 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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