MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE I 2008-9
Aims: The course aims to provide an introduction to English literature in the period 1100 to 1500, through a concentration on narrative writing. Attention will be given to the literary and cultural background to the works to be studied: in particular, the course will explore the links between medieval English and French literature, and it will also examine treatments of classical and Biblical material in Middle English.
Objectives: By the end of the course, students should have become familiar with some of the most important Middle English texts. They should also have reached an awareness of some of the most distinctive features of medieval writing and thought. Their linguistic skills should have been enhanced through reading texts in a stage of the English language distant from our own.
Structure: Teaching will consist of weekly sessions of two hours’ duration. The format of these sessions will vary, but generally the first hour will be a lecture and the second a seminar-type discussion. Some classes will introduce texts through the study of extracts; others will examine works in their entirety. After an introductory class, the Autumn Term will examine two of the key genres of medieval writing: the romance and the fabliau. Classes will then explore the development of the Arthurian legend in medieval England, beginning with the epic Brut by La3amon, and ending with Malory’s Morte Darthur. The final session of this section of the course will look at the treatment of Arthurian legend by post-medieval writers, especially Tennyson. The course will then look at religious writing, beginning with Pearl and Patience, two of the works preserved in the manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Religious works for, and about, women will also be covered, as well as writing in which the rituals of religion are parodied. We shall then study two of the most important latemedieval authors of narrative literature, the Englishman John Gower and the Scot Robert Henryson, respectively a contemporary and a reader of Chaucer. The course will conclude with a session in which we discuss the manuscript contexts in which some of the texts studied during the year have been preserved.
Course outline:
AUTUMN TERM
Introduction to the Course I Genre Romance Fabliau II Arthurian Literature Arthurian Legend: Tristan and Lancelot La3amon’s Brut READING WEEK Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Alliterative Morte Arthure, The Stanzaic Morte Arthur Malory I: Sources Malory II: ‘The Tale of the Sank Greal’ Arthurian Legend in the Nineteenth Century: Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
Dr. Corrie
Ms. Wood Ms. Wood
Prof. North Dr. Corrie
Ms. Wood Prof. North Dr. Corrie Dr. Corrie Dr. Corrie
SPRING TERM III Christian Narratives Pearl Patience Allegory: Sawles Warde Saints’ Lives The Roman de Renart in England READING WEEK IV Moral Fictions Gower I Gower II Henryson I: The Fables Henryson II: The Testament of Cresseid Conclusions Ms. Wood Prof. North Ms. Wood Ms. Wood Dr. Corrie Ms. Wood Prof. Irvine Dr. Corrie Dr. Hackett Dr. Corrie
Reading list 1. Classes will use the following editions of texts: Middle English Verse Romances, ed. Donald B. Sands (Exeter University Press, 1986). Sir Launfal (pp. 201-32) will be studied in the class on the romance genre; again, you might photocopy this from a library copy if you do not want to buy the whole book. Old and Middle English, c. 890-c. 1400: An Anthology, ed. Elaine Treharne, 2 nd ed. (Blackwell, 2004). This anthology, which includes texts from the Old English period as well as the early part of Middle English, contains extracts from La3amon’s Brut (others will be issued in class in photocopies). It also includes a version of The Life of St. Margaret, which will be studied in the class on saints’ lives in the Spring Term; and Dame Sirith, which will be studied in the class on the genre of fabliau. The other early Middle English texts in the anthology provide useful contextualising material for the literature that will be studied in classes, and they are presented in a ‘user-friendly’ way, with either facing-page translation or glosses of difficult words. There are several copies in the library, if you want to photocopy the texts that we will be reading in classes. * The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Malcolm Andrew and R.A. Waldron (Edward Arnold, 1978). This is the edition that will be used in the classes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Patience. But you might read these poems in the first instance in the Everyman edition by J.J. Anderson that you used in your first year for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This contains marginal glosses and translations of sections of the poems, which are useful since the language is particularly elaborate. King Arthur’s Death, ed. Larry D. Benson (Exeter University Press, 1986). This contains both The Alliterative Morte Arthure and The Stanzaic Morte Arthur, with unfamiliar words glossed in the margins. * Malory: Works, ed. Eugene Vinaver (Oxford University Press, 1971). You will have this edition from your first year. Over the summer, you should consolidate your knowledge of Books 7 and 8, and read Books 1 and 6 (‘The Tale of King Arthur’ and ‘The Tale of the Sank Greal’). Medieval English Prose for Women, ed. Bella Millett and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Oxford University Press, 1990). This contains Sawles Warde and a different version of The Life of St. Margaret from the one in the Treharne anthology. All the texts in the edition are accompanied by an excellent facing-page translation of the difficult early Middle English. * John Gower, Confessio Amantis, ed. Russell A. Peck, with Latin translations by
Andrew Galloway, 3 vols (Medieval Institute Publications, 2000-2004); also available online at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/caintro.htm Over the summer, try to read at least the Prologue and the first book. Peck’s 3-volume edition can be borrowed from the library; if you want to buy your own copy of the Confessio, you should acquire either Peck’s 1980 edition of selected tales from the work (published by Toronto University Press) or J.A.W. Bennett’s edition of selected extracts (Clarendon Press, 1968). The Poems of Robert Henryson, ed. Robert L. Kindrick (Kalamazoo, 1997). This is an accessible edition that includes Henryson’s Fables and The Testament of Cresseid, which you will be reading in classes. Other texts (including material for the classes on nineteenth-century medievalism and the satire the Roman de Renart) will be issued in photocopied handouts.
* Asterisked texts are recommended summer reading.
The examination for the course will include a commentary section in which extracts will be taken from the prescribed editions. You are therefore advised to read the texts in these versions.
2. Background reading: If you have not already done so, you should read: J.A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work: Middle English Literature and its Background 1100-1500 (Oxford University Press, 1982). This is a concise, but important, discussion of the factors that conditioned the production of literature in the Middle Ages. It is brief, readable and reasonably priced.
The following books about various aspects of medieval life and culture are particularly relevant to the texts studied on this course. Try to read at least one over the summer. Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Redaktion, 1992). ---, Gothic Art: Glorious Visions (Redaktion, 1996). Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400c.1580 (Yale University Press, 1992). Maurice Keen, Chivalry (Yale University Press, 1984).
Paul Murray Kendall, The Yorkist Age: Daily Life during the Wars of the Roses (Penguin, 2001).
Good, brief paperback accounts of the major political and social developments of the English Middle Ages can be found in: M.T. Clanchy, England and its Rulers 1066-1272: Foreign Lordship and National Identity (Fontana, 1983). An excellent introduction to the early medieval period, emphasizing England’s links with the continent: a subject of interest in today’s political climate. A.R. Myers, England in the Late Middle Ages (Penguin, 1952, and subsequent reprints). This takes up the story in the middle of the reign of Edward I, whose accession to the throne marks the end of Clanchy’s study. A more recent discussion, concentrating on the period between the mid-fourteenth century and the midfifteenth century, is: Gerald Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461 (Clarendon Press, 2005).
Lastly, a good starting-point for critical reading for the course is: Helen Cooper, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2004). Advice on critical reading for individual texts will be issued in the appropriate classes.
Do contact me if you require further information—and enjoy the vacation!
Marilyn Corrie, June, 2008.