EN31120 - ARTHURIAN LITERATURE; MEDIEVAL TO RENAISSANCE

Module Identifier	EN31120
Module Title	ARTHURIAN LITERATURE; MEDIEVAL TO RENAISSANCE
Academic Year	2001/2002
Co-ordinator	Dr Claire Jowitt
Semester	Intended for use in future years
Next year offered	N/A
Next semester offered	N/A
Course delivery	Seminars / Tutorials	20 Hours 10 x 2 hrs
Assessment	Essay	2 essays (2,500 words each).	100%
	Resit assessment	Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements.

Outline syllabus

We are all acquainted with the Arthurian legends but perhaps do not realise their complexity and the variety of uses to which they were put. This module will examine the development of the legends from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. We shall be less concerned with the question of the historical authenticity of Arthur and his court than with the ways in which a cycle of particularly British myths developed and were used. We shall also look at a wide variety of material and types of writing: poetry, chronicles, painting, film, romance, etc. so that the question of genre as well as historical period has to be considered when interpretation of each work is attempted.

The module will be taught in 10 seminars of 2 hours. Supplementary bibliographies will be issued in due course.

Course schedule

Lancelot du Lac film: (1975)
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (Penguin) and copies of materials of chronicles dealing with historical question of Arthur (Nennius, Gildas, etc.)
Chretien De Troyes, Arthurian Romances (Everyman)
Layamon and Wace, The Life of King Arthur (Everyman)
The Quest for the Holy Grail from the French Vulgate Cycle (Penguin)
The Death of King Arthur from the French Vulgate Cycle (Penguin)
Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur
Two Arthurian films: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones (1975); Excalibur, dir. John Boorman (1981)

Brief description

Examines a series of Medieval and Renaissance texts which chart the development of the Arthurian cycle, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Edmund Spenser. The course will not deal with the historical or archaeological evidence, but the use of myth, modes of interpretation and ways of reading material which is both historical and literary.