ENGL 320 A: English Literature: The Middle Ages

The course offers a more advanced treatment of Premodern and Early Modern sources, building on texts covered in the ENGL 210- and 211-level sequence. In this offering, an emphasis will be placed on the fictional “universe” of the court, on and the literary medium of the dream-vision. The selections here are notable for the inclusion of Old English prose as well as poetry. In the discussion of early English, we will read and discuss important works from the Old and Middle English periods, including a range of compositions by Old English poets, the early medieval English Life of King Alfred, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and a selection of non-canonical items -- including some long-marginalized women’s poetry from Tudor courtly circles, emerging in the early 1500s in the enigmatic Devonshire Manuscript. There will be a mid-term, final and a major term paper.

Course Texts:
Hamer, Richard, A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse, 2nd ed. (Faber, 2015)
Heaney, Seamus, trans., Beowulf: A New Verse Trans. (dual-lang. ed.) (Norton, 2001)
Old English prose and the Life of King Alfred (handouts)
Winny, James trans., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Broadview, 1882)
Beidler, Peter, Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, rev. ed. (Bantam, 2006)
Early Modern Texts of the Sixteenth Century (handouts)