ENM4800

Middle English literature

Jennifer Strauss

12 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
* Pre- or corequisites: ENH2190/ENH3190 and ENH3390, descriptions of which can be found in the Arts undergraduate handbook for 1998.

Objectives Students taking this subject should develop advanced skills in reading and analysing the language of Middle English, 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 relevant Christian doctrine; knowledge and understanding of medieval literary theory, especially with regard to the conventions of the different forms of the romance genre; knowledge of the different critical approaches that have been brought to bear on medieval texts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and an understanding of the different kinds of textual readings generated by these approaches; the skills required, in both written and oral work, to marshal such knowledge and understanding into arguments addressed to specific topics.

Synopsis A study of the themes of love, warfare, fortune and free will as they are embodied in verse and prose narrative treatments of the story of Troilus and Cressida and of the Arthuriad. A special study will be made of the Death of Arthur. With the exception of the two texts in King Arthur's Death, texts will be read in the original language and discussed in their linguistic and cultural context. The narrative and ideological conventions of medieval romance will be a major concern.
Assessment Essay (4000 words): 40%
* Essay (4000 words): 40%
* Seminar assessment (1000 words): 20%

Prescribed texts

Chaucer `Troilus and Criseyde' in The Riverside Chaucer (ed.) L Benson, OUP, 1988
Henryson R The Testament of Cresseid and other poems sel. Macdiarmid, Penguin, 1973
Malory The works of Sir Thomas Malory (ed.) E Vinaver, OUP, 1978
Stone B (tr.) King Arthur's death Penguin, 1988
Tolkien J R R and Gordon E V (eds) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight OUP rev. edn. 1992

Recommended texts

Burnley D A guide to Chaucer's language Macmillan, 1983
Coote S English literature of the Middle Ages Penguin, 1988