01 MW6 CAC 35110 FLORSCHUETZ SC-205
01-Middle English Romance
Romance was the most prevalent and popular of secular genres in the later Middle Ages. In England, romance became much more prevalent at the beginning of the fourteenth century and proliferated in number for the next three hundred years. Romance is a notoriously slippery category, and throughout the seminar, we will explore and attempt to define the boundaries of this genre, using the texts under discussion and prominent critical writing on the topic. The course will be organized around several loose categorizations of romance: early romance, chivalric romance, including Arthurian romance, Breton Lay, and family and genealogical romance. We will be particularly interested in questions of individual and group identity as they are presented in these texts, and the intersections between these ways of understanding the self and other medieval institutions such as kingship, feudalism, the family, the Church, and the Crusades. Primary texts will be in Middle English. The work this entails will be rewarded by fascinating and sometimes bizarrely sensationalistic readings: usurpations, abductions, battles, murders, monsters, sacrilege, tests, and occasionally love form the subject matter of these texts.
Primary texts will include the following: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Octavian, The Alliterative Morte Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Sir Gowther, Emaré, and The Sultan of Babylon.
Course requirements: Quizzes, brief response papers, short presentations, one medium-length paper (7-8 pages), and one larger project (12-15 pages). Attendance is required; moreover, active participation by all members of the seminar is necessary to the success of this course. |
