Course Description
A survey of the literary culture of the High Middle Ages, 1050-1500, in light of discoveries that are unique to this period and that lay the foundations for modernity, such as humanism and the individual, universities and the liberal arts, the city and the guild.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be responsible for a more extensive
syllabus, for secondary reading, and for more ambitious and
sophisticated writing.
Athena Title
The Age of Cathedrals
Undergraduate Prerequisite
Two 2000-level ENGL courses or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 3000-level ENGL course) or (one 2000-level ENGL course and one 2000-level CMLT course)
Graduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will survey the literary culture of the High Middle Ages, 1050-1500, in light of discoveries that are unique to this period and lay the foundations for modernity, such as humanism and the individual, universities and the liberal arts, the city and the guild. By the end of the course, students, having read a substantial body of literature (both primary and secondary), will be able to discuss and write about these texts in the broadest of cultural terms. They will gain a sound appreciation of the culture in which late medieval literature was composed, and to which it is responsive.
Topical Outline
The choice and sequence of topics will vary from instructor to instructor and semester to semester. The literature will be read outside of class and discussed in class, examined individually and comparatively in the context of the times and the circumstances of their composition. Periodically during the semester, students will perform a number of graded tasks, including some combination of tests and out-of-class papers. A possible series of topics might resemble the following: Weeks 1-2: Exemplum to Fabliau: Jacobus De Voragine, Legenda Aurea; Robert Mannyng, Handlyng Synne (selections); Boccaccio, Decameron (selections); Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (selections); Benson and Andersson, The Literary Context of Chaucer's Fabliaux (selections). Week 3-4: Allegory and Satire: Romance of the Rose (Jean de Lorris), DeGuileville, Pilgrimage of the Life of Man (selections); William Langland, Piers Plowman (selections). Weeks 5-6: Writing Medieval, Reading Medieval: Augustine, On Christian Doctrine; Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria Nova; Dante, On the Eloquence of the Vernacular; selections from Minnis and Scot, Medieval Literary Criticism and Theory, and from Watson et al., The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520. Weeks 7-8: Cathedral Culture: Lewis, Discarded Image; Duby, The Ages of Cathedrals; Gordon Leff, Paris and Oxford Universities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries; selections from University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (ed. Lynn Thorndike); Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its art Treasures (Panofsky, ed.). Weeks 9-10: The Individual: Selections from Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050-1200; Robert Hanning, Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance; C. W. Bynum, "Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?," in Jesus as Mother. Chrétien de Troyes and Petrarch. Weeks 11-12: Medieval Studies: Norman Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages; Lee Patterson, Negotiating the Past (selections); David Matthews, The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910 (selections). Weeks 13-14: Resources: Discussion of major databases; Patrologia Latina, CETA-DOC, Middle English Compendium, International Medieval Bibliography; Online Medieval Source; Labyrinth; discussion of printed serial and descriptive catalogues, and indices such as Index of Middle English Prose; Index of Printed Middle English Prose; Index of Middle English Verse; Manual of Writings in Middle English; Middle English Dictionary; Records in Early English Drama; Stith-Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature. Week 15: The Archive: Work in Middle English book hands and abbreviations; assignments in transcription from facsimiles and online editions. Introduction to major archival sources, and access to them.