ENGL30081 Medieval Romance

Coursework questions are here 

Student presentations: list here

Assessment criteria here

Exam notes here

In this course we will look at the medieval romance in  English. We begin, however, with an early romance in French, Yvain by Chretien de Troyes (read in Kibler's prose translation). We then turn to the late medieval prose romance of Sir Thomas Malory, looking in particular at his 'Tale of Sir Gareth', and later giving consideration to the end of the Arthurian story in his version. We also look at the most famous of English romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (in Winny's translation). After the mid-semester reading week break, we then turn to less well-known romances in Middle English. You will choose from among various works to construct your own presentation. These include  Sir Orfeo, Havelok the Dane, Amis and Amiloun, Sir Launfal, The Squire of Low Degree. 

 TEAMS website: go to  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm and select the text you want. 

IMPORTANT: when you print off texts from TEAMS, make sure you get the side notes, which are essential - you might need to resize the text in your browser to do this, or print landscape rather than portrait. Also, make sure you print the foonotes, which are usually in a separate window at the bottom of your screen.
 

Secondary reading: 

The medieval sections in Corinne Saunders, A Companion to Romance: From Classical to Contemporary (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) will be useful. For the larger overview, see relevant sections of Helen Cooper, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Shakespeare (Oxford: OUP, 2004). 

For broad introductions to the topic of medieval English romance, see Dieter Mehl, The Middle English Romances of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968) and Lee C. Ramsey, Chivalric Romances: Popular Literature in Medieval England (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983); both in JRUL. More recent material is in Jennifer Fellows and Carol Meale, eds. Romance in Medieval England (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991); Nicola McDonald, ed. Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004); Carol M. Meale, ed. Readings in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer), 1994); Ad Putter and Jane Gilbert, eds. The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romances (Harlow: Longmans, 2000).

For Sir Gawain, begin with Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson, eds., A Companion to the Gawain-poet (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997).

 See further the references from each session, in the class schedule below.

Class schedule: 

Class schedule:

 1   The Beginning: Chretien de Troyes, Yvain

 2   The End: Malory, 'The Tale of Sir Gareth'

 3   Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, fits I & II

 4   Sir Gawain, fits III & IV  Carolyn Dinshaw article for this week's reading, here:

 5   Summary: Malory, Yvain, Gawain

 6   READING WEEK

 7   4 students will present

 8   4 students will present

 9   4 students will present

10   4 students will present

11   The Material Text: Romances in the John Rylands Library

  
 Exam notes