Epic, Romance, and the Love of God: Medieval France and
England
Syllabus
INTRODUCTIONS
Week I
Day 1 the "Middle Ages"
- To be done for the first meeting: in one written
paragraph explain (briefly) your understanding of the
primary difference between the Middle Ages and our own
era. We will test out these ideas over the course of the
semester and will return, at the end, to the initial
initial impressions to see how far we've come.
- Also, bring in a current article on a medieval topic. It
be from a newspaper, from a magazine, a movie review or
(written) reflections on an experience with a
"medieval" topic or place.
- discussion of preconceptions of the medieval period,
including influences from pop culture and Victorian
period
- "Middle Ages," "Dark Ages," and
dating (incl. early, high, later Middle Ages)
- Why study the Middle Ages?
- assignment: view Sutton Hoo artifacts
and archaeological efforts: Sutton
Hoo Room, The
Face of the Invader, and purse
cover; and read selection from Tacitus, Germania
Day 2 Germania
- Sutton Hoo: Christian and Pagan heritage
- Tacitus, Germania and Germanic
"invasions," comitatus
- Revisit "Dark Ages"
- Maps and timelines: locate Anglo-Saxon settlements and
Germanic movements in 4th-7th centuries
- assignment: read selections from Gildas,
On
the Ruin of Britain, Bede, Ecclesiastical
History, and History
of the British by "Nennius"
Day 3 Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain
- Historiography
- Gildas, Bede, "Nennius"
- the problems with records or lack thereof
- document reliability: author, audience, patron
- assignment: read "The
Wanderer" and "The Seafarer" and review
Bede
Day 4 "The Wanderer" and "The Seafarer"
- Nature as adversary
- Whence the sense of loneliness? What is the value of that
loneliness?
- literature; "oral literature;" writing means
Christianity
- preservation of tradition
- problems of preservation, as in historiography
- Christianity's rocky and gradual infusion; recall Bede
- assignment: read Beowulf (ll. 1-188) and
view the manuscript's first
page and reading
and conservation, both via the Electronic Beowulf
project (U. Kentucky)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) What are some oral qualities in this text?
Why is Herot important (recall the Wanderer)? What does
the reference to Christianity (ll. 175-88) tell you about
the narrator's purported distance from the story (recall
Gildas and Bede)?
EPIC
Week II
Day 1 Beowulf (ll. 1-188)
- oral qualities
- conflict and major characters established
- heroic boast
- role of the coast-guard
- map
- assignment: read Beowulf (ll. 189-709)
Day 2 Beowulf (ll. 189-836)
- litotes and its implications
- Unferth
- assignment: read Beowulf (ll. 837-1887)
- written response: Find two examples of
alliteration and explain their effects in their contexts.
Day 3 Beowulf (ll. 837-1887)
- alliteration, half-lines
- orality
- Wealthow
Day 4 Beowulf (ll. 837-1887)
- leadership and community: feast, trophies, ring-giving
- wergild and Grendel's mother
- assignment: read Beowulf (ll. 1888-3182
[to the end])
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) What role does Christianity seem to play in
the final selection? Where does fate seem to fit in? What
makes a good leader in Beowulf's society; does the author
agree; how can you tell? What is the role of Wiglaf in
the tale?
Week III
Day 1 Beowulf (ll. 1888-2537)
- Christianity: glossed or integral; recall Sutton Hoo
- fate
Day 2 Beowulf (ll. 2538-3182)
- aged Beowulf's speech
- Wiglaf
Day 3 Beowulf
- dragon as symbol; recall Sutton Hoo
- beaten slave, sick society
- written response: What is the tone at
the end of the story? How does this sense relate to
earlier parts?
Day 4 Beowulf
- ending tone
- inevitability; fixed events driving narrative (in
romance, narrative will drive events)
- hero paradigm
- assignment: read "The Peasant
Bodo," Chapter 2 in Eileen Power's Medieval
People (handout, approx. 20 pp., including pictures)
and C. Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe: A Short
History, chs. 6-8 (approx. 54 pp., including maps and
photos)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) What are Bodo's chief daily concerns? What
place does the Church have in his life? What might be his
impressions of Charlemagne and/or the Song of Roland?
Week IV
Day 1 Charlemagne and Bodo
Day 2 Introduction to the Song of Roland
- Capetians: dukes vs. monarchs
- chanson de geste: epic revisited
- assignment: read The Song of Roland
pp. 1-2 and laisses 1-135
Day 3 Song of Roland laisses 1-135
- laisses: written form
- oral qualities: AOI, "munjoie," inevitability
- hero-and-sidekick paradigm
- assignmentP: read The Song of Roland
laisses 136-213
Day 4 Song of Roland laisses 136-213
- formula: "none greater"
- orality
- Saracens and Christian ignorance
- assignment: read The Song of Roland
laisses 214-291 (to the end); view 14th-century French
illustrations of Roland legend: Charlemagne
receiving the Holy Nail, Saracens
disguised as devils , Death
of Roland , Franks
and Saracens at Roncesvalles, Charlemagne
massacring the Saracens, and Flight
of the Saracens
- written response (*due day 2*): (Pick
one of the following.) What do these 14th-century images
tell you about contemporary French impressions of
themselves (at least the artist and his rich patron and
audience) and of Muslims? How do the figures and
depiction of events in the manuscript compare with or
contrast to the attitudes expressed in the Song of
Roland? In the Song of Roland, what does the necessary
role of the hero seem to be, and how does he gain or
deserve recognition? Are there any ideas, comments,
observations, or actual phrases repeated in the course of
the Song of Roland--if so, what are they, and why or to
what effect do you think they are repeated?
Week V
Day 1 Song of Roland laisses 214-291
- for God and "France": Roland as
"national" hero
- dukes vs. monarchs revisited: struggles over centrality
Day 2 Song of Roland and Beowulf
- foundation myths
- inevitability
- hero paradigm
- assignment: PAPER 1
due next day 2
Day 3 Epic: closing ideas
- life as endurance
- the role of public glory and communal values
- oral "literature"
- writing ideas and strategies
Day 4 Writing
Week VI
Day 1 "Picture-show"
- art in northwestern Europe pre-1000: summary
- castles: an introduction
Day 2 Writing workshop
Day 3 1066
- feudalism and monarchy revisited: new sheriff in town
- Battle Abbey
- fleur-de-lis: England and France
- the Anglo-Norman monarchy
- assignment: read in Arthurian
Romances by Chrétien de Troyes :"Yvain" by
day 1 (approx. 100 pages) and "Erec &
Enide" by day 3 (approx. 100 pages); and view Les tres riches
heures du Duc de Berry at the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris (via WebMuseum)
Day 4 Romance: an introduction
- Chrétien de Troyes biography
- matière de Bretagne and the legends of Arthur
- verse vs. prose
- audience and author
- written response: Using notes, record
your impressions as you read, and pay particular
attention to the differences between the characters of
this romance and the epics we have just read. When you
finish the reading and note-taking, in a (short)
paragraph summarize, pick out some highlights to clarify
them, or give a general reflection about what you've read
and what the tale might tell you about the society that
produced it.
ROMANCE
Week VII
Day 1 Yvain
- first impressions
- "mout bel conjointure"
- juxtaposed to epic
Day 2 Yvain
- conventions of "courtly" romance: highlights
- 12th century "renaissance"
- concurrent with epic for 300 years
- stabilizing politics and increase in wealth
Day 3 Erec & Enide
- similarities with Yvain?
- the self
- new objects of and routes to honor
- assignment: read "Lancelot" in
Arthurian Romances (approx. 100 pages) by day 1
Day 4 Erec & Enide
- Erec's errors and redemption
- hero paradigm: variations? non-existent?
Week VIII
Day 1 Lancelot
- the search for honor
- recurring images and motifs of romance
Day 2 Lancelot
- Lancelot's errors and redemption
- hero paradigm: variations? non-existent?
Day 3 Romance
- ideas of romance
- assignment: PAPER 2
due next day 3
Day 4 Romance vs. Epic
Week IX
Day 1 Picture-show: aspirations in architecture
- cathedral churches
- evolution of some sanctified spaces
- unity of form, function, and spirit
Day 2 Picture-show: aspirations in architecture
- stained glass: Chartres
- sculpted works, interior and exterior
- reliquaries
Day 3 Writing workshop
- PAPER 2 DUE
- assignment: view the cathedral church at
Chartres
and others in France
and England;
and read Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres,
Ch. VII "Roses and Apses" (approx. 12 pages)
Day 4 Cathedral churches
- responses
- symbolism
- cathedral schools
- assignment: view a brilliant photo of Mont-Saint-Michel
and read Adams, M-S-M and C, Ch. VIII, "The
Twelfth-Century Glass," and Ch. IX, "The
Legendary Windows" (approx. 56 pages)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) Given what you know about the lifestyles of
people like Bodo and about the time, money, and
collective effort required to build a structure like
Mont-Saint-Michel, what must have been the significance
for a community (secular or clerical) of such a
sanctified place? What can you say about a society that
would build such a place? How did religious sculptures
and stained glass serve the mission of the Church and the
needs of most people? What do Gothic cathedral churches
express (and how) about contemporary prevailing needs,
desires, self-images, and images of the world?
THE
LOVE OF GOD
Week X
Day 1 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
Day 2 The Church and the three orders
Day 3 Monasticism: the Rule of Benedict
- opus dei: prayer and work, the Word and everything
pertinent to it
- communal existence
- endowment and penitential retirement
- assignment: read "Nunneries,"
Ch. 5 in Eileen Power, Medieval Women and "An
Abbess: Hildegard of Bingen," Ch. 5 in Frances and
Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages (approx. 45
pages)
Day 4 Convents
- new opportunities for women
- assignment: read the Song of Songs and
Origen and St. Bernard on the Song of Songs (approx. 30
pages), and view samples from a 14th-century Flemish Book
of Hours, Maguerite de Navarre's "La Coche ou le
Debat de l'Amour" (c. 1540), a French illuminated
rendering of Hezekiah and the water clock, and late
13th-century English anatomical illustrations at the Bodleian Library
at the University of Oxford
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) What is the Song of Songs "about"?
Why does Bernard approach it and interpret it the way he
does (consider his audience)? What does an reading such
as Origen's or Bernard's tell you about the way
literature and reality are to be perceived and
interpreted?
Week XI
Day 1 Exegesis: the Song of Songs
- translation variations
- love song: the humanity of Christ
- St. Bernard
- assignment: read "Pamphilius"
(approx. 31 pages)
Day 2 Caritas vs. cupiditas: psychomachia
- Pamphilius
- Augustine, On Christian Doctrine
- signifier and signified
- symbolism and allegory
- assignment: read Guillaume de Lorris, The
Romance of the Rose, Ch. 1, "The Garden, the
Fountain, and the Rose" (pp. 31-53), and take note
of the images (black & white) in the back, especially
numbers 1-28
Day 3 Romance of the Rose
- allegory
- assignment: read The Romance of the
Rose, Ch. 2, "The God of Love and the Affair of
the Heart," (pp. 54-72)
Day 4 Romance of the Rose
- allegory
- assignment: read The Romance of the
Rose, Ch.3, "The Involvement of Reason and the
Castle of Jealousy" (pp. 73-88)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) Why does the lover rebuke Reason? Do you
think the narrator is the lover (and why or why not)? How
does the narrator feel about the lover's actions
(approving, scornful, indifferent)?
Week XII
Day 1 Romance of the Rose
- allegory
- Christine de Pisan: biography and contra Rose
- assignment: read The Book of the Duke
of True Lovers (pp. 47-106)
Day 2 Book of the Duke
- "season of renewal": variations on romance
- dream or personal tale: the role of the detached writer
- assignment: read The Book of the Duke
of True Lovers (pp.106-150)
Day 3 Book of the Duke
- prose, verse, and letters: effects various genres
- options for women revisited
- assignment: read "New Dimensions in
Medieval Christianity," Ch. 10 in Hollister, Medieval
Europe (approx. 18 pages)
Day 4 Lay Piety
- cults of saints and relics
- monastic reform and the Mendicants
- heresy
- assignment: read "Economic and
Social Development in the Later Middle Ages," Ch. 16
in The Pelican History of Medieval Europe by
Maurice Keen (approx. 17 pages), and view Gavin
Hill Manuscript 1 and the Fesler
Manuscript, including a detail
(all at Hill Monastic Manuscript Library)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) How do the economic and social changes you've
just read about compare with American culture today? Why
did "heresy" make the Church so nervous? Can
you think of other similar economic, political, or social
conflicts in Western history, either recent or otherwise?
Week XIII
Day 1 Commerce and urbanization
- bourgeoisie (Fr., from bourg town)
- manuscripts
- city maps
Day 2 Pilgrimages
- equal-opportunity penance
- Canterbury
- assignment: read General Prologue in
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (pp. 19-42)
Day 3 General Prologue
- characterization: the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, the
Miller, and the Pardoner
- assignment: read Prioress's Prologue and
Tale in The Canterbury Tales (pp. 186-193)
Day 4 Prioress's Prologue and Tale
- characterization
- anti-semitism
- Chaucer's irony
- assignment: read selections from The
Scholar's Guide (approx. 10 pages) and Gloria Fiero,
Wendy Pfeffer, and Mathe Allain, eds., Three Medieval
Views of Women: "The Ways of Women" (pp.
87-97), "The Virtues of Women" (pp.107-113),
"The Vices of Women" (pp. 121-131)
- written response: (Pick one of the
following.) What does our selection from The Scholar's
Guide tell you about potential tendencies in a
cloistered community (male or female)? Can you see any
fear expressed in any of these selections? If so, whence
the fear? How do the ideas of cupiditas and caritas
relate to any of these selections?
Week XIV
Day 1 Scholar's Guide and Three Medieval Views of Women
- authorized stereotypes
- fear of the body
- recall Pamphilius
- assignment: read the Wife of Bath's
Prologue in The Canterbury Tales (pp. 276-99), and
view manuscript of Wife's Prologue: half of
first page and a picture at
end of the Prologue (black and white)
Day 2 Wife of Bath's Prologue
- characterization
- authorship and persona
- assignment: read the Wife of Bath's Tale
in The Canterbury Tales (pp. 299-310)
Day 3 Wife of Bath's Tale
- romance: the view from outside the court
- scholarship: the view from outside the cloister
- "mastery" and loneliness
- assignment: PAPER 3
due next day 3
Day 4 Writing
- strategies and conferences
- assignment: bring in review questions
and concerns
LOVE OF
EVALUATION
Week XV
Day 1 Writing
- strategies and conferences
- review questions and concerns
Day 2 TBA
Day 3 TBA
- PAPER DUE
- assignment: bring in potential exam
questions, both short answer and essay
Day 4 Potential conclusions
- revisit initial impressions
- recall R. W. Southern's statement and alleged
12th-century hinge
- similarities and differences between the Middle Ages and
20th century
Week XVI
Day 1 TBA
Day 2 Exam review
Day 3 EXAM
Day 4 EXAM
Course Description | Writing Assignments | Alternative
Projects | Epic, Romance, and the Love
of God | Electronic Reference Shelf
