SoSe 18: PS-Medieval English Literatures II: Middle English Romances
Jan-Peer Hartmann
Comments
Romance was the most popular secular genre in later medieval England, with more than eighty verse romances surviving from before c. 1500, often in multiple manuscript copies and early modern prints. The genre’s popularity continued well into the early modern era, and indeed romance’s depiction of chivalric values continues to shape modern perceptions of medieval knighthood, in spite of its highly stylized and conventionalized characters and narrative structures. Characters such as King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere and Gawain are well known to modern audiences through novels and films whose plots can usually be traced directly to the body of medieval romance literature.
In this class we will read a selection of Middle English romances in the original language, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, known to Tolkien-enthusiasts through the English scholar’s edition and modern English translation, and a Middle English adaptation of Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain. Course materials and a list of the relevant primary texts with bibliographical details will be made available on Blackboard before the start of the term.
close13 Class schedule
Regular appointments