Module Identifier |
EN31220 |
Module Title |
SOCIETY,SEXUALITY AND SUBVERSION IN THE MIDDLE AGES |
Academic Year |
2007/2008 |
Co-ordinator |
Professor Diane Watt |
Semester |
Intended for use in future years |
Next year offered |
N/A |
Next semester offered |
N/A |
Course delivery |
Seminars / Tutorials | 20 Hours. Seminar. (10 x 2 hr seminar workshops) |
Assessment |
Assessment Type | Assessment Length/Details | Proportion |
Semester Assessment | Continuous Assessment: 2 essays (2,500 words each) | 100% |
Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. | 100% |
|
Learning outcomes
On completion of this module students should typically be able to:
1. demonstrate an understanding of a range of late medieval texts in English;
2. describe and analyse a range of late medieval literary forms and genres;
3. demonstrate an understanding of late medieval English culture and history;
4. analyse a range of late medieval texts in English in relation to current critical and theoretical debates;
5. demonstrate an understanding of late medieval literary English.
Brief description
Focusing on works by Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain-poet, this module will challenge the myth that medieval literature was much more straightforward than modern literature by looking at the way in which society, orthodoxy, gender and sexuality are constructed within the set texts and by considering the extent to which certain of these texts are socially subversive, sexually transgressive or potentially heretical.
This module complements the core module on Medieval and Renaissance Writing but will also be accessible to anyone interested in reading medieval texts and in locating the literature of the time in its social and historical context. It will also introduce a range of approaches to Medieval English poetry from more traditional criticism to Marxist, deconstructionist, feminist and postmodern readings. Such readings illustrate that medieval literature remains of relevance in the 21st century.
Content
SEMINAR PROGRAMME
PART ONE: SOCIETY
Seminar 1: Society in Transition
-
The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
Seminars 2 & 3: Society in Decline
-
The Prologue, and Passus i-vii, xviii and xx of Langland's Piers Plowman
PART TWO: MARGINALITY AND PERSECUTION
Seminars 4 & 5: Anti-semitism and Conflicts of Faith
-
The Prioress's Tale; and Patience
Seminars 6 & 7: Sodomy and Crises of Faith
-
The Pardoner's Tale; and Purity
PART THREE: SOCIAL SUBVERSION AND THE LIMITS OF GENDER
Seminar 8: The Incestuous Family Romance
Seminar 9: Paying One's Debts
-
The Reeve's Tale; and Chaucer's Fabliaux
Seminar 10: The Limits of Genre
Reading Lists
Books
** Should Be Purchased
Geoffrey Chaucer (ed. A C Cawley) (1992) The Canterbury Tales
Everyman
J J Anderson (ed.) (1996) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Cleanness, Patience
Everyman
William Langland (ed. A. V. C. Schmidt) (1995) The Vision of Piers Plowman
Everyman
William Langland (trans. A. V. C. Schmidt) (1992) Piers Plowman
Oxford
** Essential Reading
Carolyn Dinshaw (1989) Chaucer's Sexual Poetics
London
Clare Lees (ed.) (1994) Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages
London
David Aers (ed.) (1986) Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History
Brighton
David Aers, (ed.) (1988) Community, Gender and Individual Identity: English Writing 1360-1430
London
David Wallace (1998) Chaucerian Polity
Stanford
Lee Patterson (1991) Chaucer and the Subject of History
London
Louis Fradenburg and Carla Freccero (1996) Postmodern Sexualities
London
Stephanie Trigg (ed.) (1993) Medieval English Poetry
London
Stephen Medcalf, ''On Reading Books From a Half-Alien Culture'' in Stephen Medcalf (ed.) (1981) The Later Middle Ages
London, pp. 1-55
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6