17349

WiSe 14/15: V-After the Conquest: English Literature 1066-1300

Neil Cartlidge

Comments

The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is often portrayed as a disastrous setback for English national culture, a low point, or even a void, from which a full recovery was made only in the fourteenth century. English culture between 1066 and 1300 was in fact diverse, vibrant and influential, but it was also self-consciously multilingual, with English much less important as a literary language in this period than Anglo-French and Anglo-Latin. This module addresses texts written in all three languages, but students can access all of them in modern-English translation, and are not expected to study them in their original form (though not discouraged from doing so either!). Among the texts discussed in detail are: the biography (or autobiography?) of one of the most formidable female personalities of the Middle Ages, the anchoress Christina of Markyate; the legendary history of Britain, as first formulated by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1130s; the Old French narrative Lais commonly ascribed to Marie de France; and the lively Middle English debate-poem known as The Owl and the Nightingale. Course-books: Christina of Markyate: The Life of Christina of Markyate: trans. Henrietta Leyser and Samuel Fanous (Oxford, 2008) - essential reading: please buy a copy Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: EITHER trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, 1966; frequently reprinted) OR ed./trans. Michael D. Reeve and Neil Wright (Woodbridge, 2007) OR - essential reading: please buy a copy of one of these books (Thorpe is generally cheaper) Marie de France, Lais: trans. G.S. Burgess and K. Busby, The Lais of Marie de France (Harmondsworth, 1986; frequently reprinted) - essential reading: please buy a copy Suggested background reading: Cartlidge, Neil, 'The Norman Conquest and Literary Culture after 1066', in The Blackwell Companion to British Literature, ed. Bob DeMaria, Heesok Chang and Samantha Zacher (Oxford, 2014), pp. 97-113 Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth-Century Holy Woman, ed. Samuel Fanous and Henrietta Leyser (London: Routledge, 2004) Gray, Douglas, From the Norman Conquest to the Black Death: An Anthology of Writings from England (Oxford: OUP, 2011) Salter, Elizabeth, English and International: Studies in the Literature, Art and Patronage of Medieval England, ed. Derek Pearsall and Nicolette Zeeman (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 1-100 ('An obsession with the continent') close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Fri, 14:00 - 16:00 16 Class schedule

Fri, 2014-10-17 14:00 - 16:00

Lecturers:
Prof. Neil Cartlidge