En 522 Spring 2001 Levine

Students who have not taken at least two English courses at or above the 200 level are rarely comfortable taking this course. Most students who have worked more than 10 hours a week or who have taken more than four courses while taking this course have suffered bitterly. If absence and tardiness are vital for your self-esteem, think seriously about choosing some other course. In no case can your grade exceed the percentage produced by dividing the amount of time you are present by the amount of time I am present.

Required Books

Middle English Romances, ed. S. Shepherd, NY 1995; Cawley, Pearl, Sir Gawain London, 1976; Packet of passages from Piers Plowman, Horn, Tale of Constance and Tale of Florent from Gower's Confessio Amantis, and other items.

Essential tools

Middle English Dictionary, ed. Kurath XPE697.F52 http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med/

Oxford English Dictionary Oxford 1989 XPE1625.087 http://www.bu.edu/oed2e/

 

January 14 introduction: Middle English language and literature.

January 16 SIR ORFEO http://docserver.ub.rug.nl/camelot/teams/orfeo.htm

Some relevant primary texts

Ovid, Metamorphoses X 1-105 Virgil, Georgics IV 453-529 Boethius III.xii

(Shepherd 349-350). Hugh Primas, Poem 3, (Orpheus Euridice sociatur, amicus amice ..), in Fleur Adcock, Hugh Primas and the Archpoet, Cambridge 1994, pp. 4-9 PA8347.H77.A23.1994; translation of story of Orpheus in 14th-century ovide moralisé, http://people.bu.edu/robbe/

Some relevant secondary literature

Seth Lerer, "Artifice and Artistry in SIR ORFEO," Speculum 1985; R.H. Nicholson, "SIR ORFEO etc."; RES 1985 Spearing, Readings etc. PR260S7 1987 56-82.

Jan 21 LAUNFAL. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/laun.htm

Some relevant primary texts

Sir Landevale (Shepherd 352-64); Lai le fresne http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/freine.htm

The lais of Marie de France, translated, with an introd. and notes, by Robert Hanning & Joan Ferrante New York 1978 PQ1494.L3 E5 1978; Lais of Marie de France, tr. Eugene Mason, London, [1911]PQ1494.L3 E6 F11

January 23,28 HORN http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/teams/hornfrm.htm

Some relevant primary texts

(ed.) Mildred K. Pope, The Romance of Horn by Thomas, Oxford 1955, 1964, 2 vols. PQ1301.F39, no. 9-10, 12-13 Chrétien de Troyes. Arthurian romances New York Dutton, 1975 PQ1447.E5 C6 1975. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Erec/ (also yvain, cliges, lancelot on the same site)

Some relevant secondary readings

E. Auerbach's "The Knight Goes Forth", Mimesis (Shepherd 411-427); Matilda Bruckner, Shaping romance : interpretation, truth, and closure in twelfth-century French fictions, Philadelphia 1993 PQ178.B78; Spearing, Readings etc. PR260.S7.1987, 24-55; Ganim, Style and Consciousness etc. PR317.N28.G36.1983, 37-54; What happens if you place Horn and Havelok in the same genre as Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain or Erec?

Jan 30 - Feb 11 HAVELOCK http://docserver.ub.rug.nl/camelot/teams/danefrm.htm

Some relevant primary texts

Gaimar, L'Estoire des Engleis (ed. Bell), Oxford, 1960; PQ1301.F39 no. 14-16 (For a translation of the section parallel to the Middle English text, see Shepherd 319-329); A. Bell, Le Lai d'Haveloc etc. Manchester 1925.

Some relevant secondary literature

Shepherd 315-329; RL, "Who composed Havelok for whom?" Yearbook for English Studies XXII (1992), pp. 95-104; John Finlayson, "King Horn and Havelok the Dane: A Case of Mistaken Identities," Medievalia et Humanistica 18 (1992), pp. 17-45; Ganim, 19-37; Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation etc., Oxford, 1996 PR275 N29 T87 1996, pp. 142-155; Stephen Knight, "The Social Function of the Middle English Romances," in Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History, ed. by David Aers, New York, 1986 PR260.M43.1986.

Feb 13, 20 Gower's "Tale of Florent" and Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale". http://www.bu.edu/english/levine/florent.htm

Some relevant primary texts

John Gower, Complete Works, Oxford, 1899-1902 PR1980.E99. v.1,4. PR1911.E5.E64.no.81,82; Mirour de l'omme, Vox Clamantis (see above). http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?id=GowConf&tag=public&images=images/mideng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Confess/

Some relevant secondary literature

E.D. Kraun, Lies, Slander, and Obscenity in Medieval English Literature, Cambridge 1997 PR317P38C73 pp. 113-156.

A.H. Hennessey, Betwene ernest and game etc, NY 1990 PR1984.C63.O47.1990

Gallacher, P., Love, the word, and Mercury, Albuquerque, 1975. PR1984.C63.G3

Donavin, Georgiana, Incest Narratives etc., Victoria, 1993.PR1984.C63.D66.1993

A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship London 1984 PN88.M5.1984 pp. 168-190.

RL, "Gower as Gerontion," Medieaevistik 5 (1992), 81-96.

 

P.G. Beidler, "Transformations etc.," pp. 100-114, in R.F. Yeager (ed.), Chaucer and Gower, 1991 PR1924.C43.1991

Barrie R. Strauss, "The Subversive Discourse of the WOB," ELH 55 (1988)

527-554 PR1 F34

Susan Schibanoff, "The New Reader and Female Textuality etc.," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 10 (1988), pp. 71-108 PR1901.S79

Curtius 89-105; Chance 214-231 Dinshaw, pp. 113-131; North 289-303; K.M. Wilson

and E.M. Makowski, Wykked Wyves and the Woes of Marriage, Albany, 1990

PN682.L68.W55.1990, pp. 151-160; The Elder Seneca, Controversiae etc., London 1974, vol. i, pp. 120-135 (The man who

raped two women) PA6659.A2.A974M.

Feb 25 FIRST PAPER DUE: compare and contrast the Tale of Florent and the Wife of Bath's Tale, evaluating class discussion of the tales, with help from secondary sources where relevant. The paper must be prefaced by an abstract of at least three sentences (for models of abstracts see recent issues of PMLA).

Feb 27 - March 18 GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?id=AnoGawa&tag=public&images=images/mideng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed

gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu/00/Courses/Lynch3/gawain

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=6161184

Some relevant primary texts

GGK and Pearl translated by Brian Stone PR2065.G3F64; translated by C. Finch, Berkeley, 1993 PR1972.G35.A345.1993; Tolkien PR1203.G38.1975; Williams PR1203.F67 Variorum edition: Vantuono, PEARL POEMS PR1972.G35.1984.

Some relevant secondary readings

Larry Benson, ART AND TRADITON etc PR2065.G31.F65

Fox 2OTH CENTURY INTERPRETATIONS OF GGK PR2065.G31.F68

Ad Putter, Sir GGK and French Arthurian Romance Oxford 1995 PR2065.G31.

P88.1995

Ross Arthur, Medieval Sign Theory etc. Toronto 1987 PR2065.G31.A76

RL, "Aspects of Grotesque Realism in

GGK," Chaucer Review XVII (1982) 65-75

Gellrich, Discourse and Dominion in the 14th Century, Princeton 1995 PR275.O72.G45.1995

J.N. Wasserman, "The Current State of GGK Criticism," Chaucer Review 27 (1993), pp. 141-147

M.V. Guerin, The Fall of Kings and Princes Stanford 1995 PQ203.5.A77.G83 pp. 196-232.

David Williams, Deformed Discourse, Montreal 1996, PN56.M55.W55 pp. 267-284.

March 20 - April 1 PEARL http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=AnoPear&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed

Some relevant secondary readings:

Conley, MIDDLE ENGLISH PEARL PR2111.A7.F70; S. Stanbury, Seeing the Gawain Poet, Philadelphia, 1991 PR1972.G353.S7.1991; RL, "Pearl-child: Topos and Archetype in the Pearl" Medievalia et Humanistica VIII (1977), 243-251. S.G. Fein, "Twelve-Line Stanza Form etc.," Speculum 72 (1997) 367-398. See also April 7-14 for literature on allegory.

April 3 -22 PIERS PLOWMAN, selections

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?id=LanPier&tag=public&images=images/mideng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed

Some relevant primary texts

William Langland, Piers Plowman, ed. A.V.C. Schmidt, London 1995 (see his Everyman B also); (ed.) George Kane, Piers Plowman: Three Versions, 1988- Pr2010.K3.1988 Alanus de Insulis's Anticlaudianus, tr. Sheridan,Toronto, 1973 PA8240.A5 A64 1973; Alanus, Complaint of Nature, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/alain-deplanctu.html

Nigellus Wireker's Speculum Stultorum, tr. Mozley 1963 PA8445.W5S7.E6.F63 tr. Regenos, Austin 1959 PA8445.W5.S7.E6.F59; Bernardus Sylvestris' Cosmographia, tr. W. Wetherbee, NY 1973 PA8275.B25P

Apocalypse and Metamorphosis of Golias in Thomas Wright (ed.), Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, London, 1841 Camden Society

Roman de la Rose of Jean de Lorris and Jean de Meun, translated by Charles Dahlberg, Princeton 1971 PQ1528.A4 F71;

the ovide moralisé PQ1303.F15.; Dante's Commedia; Gower's Confessio Amantis (with some attention to his Mirour de l'omme, Colleagues Press, 1992

PQ1463.G97 M4713 1992, and the Vox Clamantis, tr. Stockton, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1962 PR1984.V6 F62

Some relevant secondary literature

Irvine 244-271; W. Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the 12th Century, Princeton 1972 PA8051.W45; JS Russell, Allergoresis, NY 1988 PR317.A52.A44.1988;

J. Alford, A Companion to Piers Plowman, Berkeley 1988 PR2015.C65.1988; Kaulbach, E.N., Imaginative Prophesy in the B-Text, Cambridge, 1994 PR2017.P74.K38.1993; P. Raabe, Imitating God, Athens 1990 PR2017.F33.R3.1990; Britton Harward, Piers Plowman and the Problem of Belief, Buffalo, 1992 PR2017.B44.H37.1992

J.A. Burrow, Langland's Fictions, 1993 PR2017.D73.B87.1993; Vasta, INTERPRETATIONS OF PIERS PLOWMAN PR2015.F68; Hussey PIERS PLOWMAN PR2015.F691; Yearbook of Langland Studies PR2015.Y42; Paule Demats, Fabula: trois études de mythographie antique et médiévale, Geneva, 1973; RL, "Exploiting Ovid: Medieval Allegorizations of the Metamorphoses," Medioevo Romanzo XIV (1989), pp. 197-213.

April 24 -May 3 Oral reports on lyrics.

http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=header&idno=HarLyr

 

Some relevant primary texts

(ed.) M. Luria, Middle English Lyrics, NY 1974 PR1187.L8; (ed.) R. Stevick, One Hundred Middle English Lyrics, Indianapolis 1964 PR1203.F642;(ed.) T. Silverstein, Medieval English Lyrics, London 1971 PR1203.F711; (ed.) T. Stemmler, Medieval English love-lyrics, Tubingen 1970 PR1203.S7M; (ed.) R.T. Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, Evanston 1964 PR1203.F63; Rossell Hope Robbins (ed.), Secular lyrics of the XIVth and XVth centuries, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1955 PR1203 F55; Historical poems of the XIVth and XVth centuries, New York, 1959 PR1204 F59; Carleton Brown (ed.), Religious lyrics of the XIVth century, 1957 PR1203 .F57; Carleton Brown (ed.), English lyrics of the XIIIth century, Oxford, 1932 PR1203 .F32; The minor poems of the Vernon MS, London, PR1119.A2.E64, no. 98, 107

Some relevant texts for those interested in comparative literature

Clemens Blume and G.M. Dreves, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, 1886-1922, 55 volumes BV468.E86; Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann, Carmina Burana, Heidelberg 1930, 1961, 1970, 3 vol. PA8133.S8.C28; (ed. and tr.) P.G. Walsh, Love Lyrics from the Carmina Burana,

Chapel Hill 1993 PA8184.C3.1993; http://www.library.nwu.edu/collmgmt/humanities/budapest/carmflo2.htm; Hugh Primas and the Archpoet, ed. and tr. Fleur Adcock, Cambridge, 1994 PA8347.H77.A23; (ed.) Heinrich Watenphul and Heinrich Krefeld, Die Gedichte des Archipoeta, Heidelberg 1958; Translation: Heinrich Krefeld, Der Archipoeta, lateinisch und deutsch, Berlin, Akademie, 1992; (ed.) Karl Strecker, Die Lieder Walters von Chatillon in der Handschrift 351 von St. Omer, Berlin, 1964, p. 37; Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte von Walters von Chatillon,

Heidelberg, 1929; (ed. and tr.) Jan Ziolkowski, The Cambridge Songs, NY, 1994 PA8164.C35.1994; The Oxford Poems of Hugh Primas and the Arundel Lyrics, ed. C.J. McDonough, Toronto, 1984; Troubadours, trouvères, Walter von der Vogelweide, minnes\"{anger; http://www.emory.edu/GERMAN/Walther/StropheI/MHG-1; (ed.) J.J. Wilhelm, The poetry of Arnaut Daniel, NY 1981 PC3330.A74.A28.1981; (ed.) S.G Nichols et al, The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, Chapel Hill, 1965 PC3330.B4.1965M; (ed.) W. Paden et al, The Poems of Bertran de Born, Berkeley 1986 PC3330.B5.A2.1986; G. Wolf (ed.),

The Poetry of Cercamon and Rudel, NY 1983 PC3365.E3.C47.1983; (ed.) J.J. Wilhelm, The Poetry of Sordello, NY 1987 PC3330.S6.A28.1987; William VII, Poetry, NY 1982 PC3330.G7.A24.1982; R.V. Sharman, The cansos and sirventes of Giraut de Borneil,

Cambridge 1989 PC3330.G4.A63.1989; Joseph Linskill, The poems of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras,

The Hague 1964 PC3330.R28.F64; Meg Bogin, The Women Troubadours, NY 1976 PC3308.B64; Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda, Berkeley, 1964 PT7313.E5.F54; Poems of the Vikings, (tr.) P. Terry, Indianapolis 1969, 1975 PT7234.E5.F691; Lee M. Hollander, The Skalds, Ann Arbor, 1968; W.D. Paden, The voice of the trobairitz, Philadelphia 1989 PC3308.V65; Stehling, Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship, NY 1984 PA8164,M4.1984; Andreas Capellanus, Art of Courtly Love, NY 1941 GT2620.F41.

 

Some relevant secondary literature

Rosemary Woolf, The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1968 PR311.F68;

Patrick Diehl, Medieval European Religious Lyric, Berkeley 1985 PN691 D53 1985; Peter Dronke, Medieval Lyric NY 1977 PN691 D7 1977; Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise etc., Oxford, 1965-66 PN688.F65; D. Pearsall (ed.), Studies in the Vernon MS, Cambridge 1990 PR1120.V473.S78.1990.

May 7 FINAL PAPER: Macaulay lists, without much speculation on their significance, eighteen differences between the way Chaucer's Man of Law tells his tale and the way Gower's Genius tells the Tale of Constance (CA II.587-1612). Using some of the resources you have developed in the course of comparing Gower's Tale of Florent and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, take up where Macaulay left off. In the course of your speculations on the significance of as many of the differences as you can handle in a timely fashion, demonstrate that a course has taken place. Graduate students must and undergraduates may produce a paper which shows evidence that secondary sources have been consulted, and sprinkled with at least one grain of salt.

FINAL EXAM May 5 9-11 A.M. Translating several passages from Middle English texts read this semester.

OFFICE: 236 Bay State Road, rm. 321 (tel. 353-2506). Office hours: If these times are not convenient, appointments may be made at other mutually convenient times. You may telephone my home (491-3958) M-F 7-9 PM, and on weekends 10AM-9:00 PM. Send e-mail to bobl@bu.edu

The course involves significant amounts of reading that must be done on time. Written exercises must be submitted on the due date, at the beginning of the hour, in grammatical, idiomatic English. Papers done at home must be typed, with one-inch margins, and PROOFREAD SCRUPULOUSLY. The style sheet distributed at the first meeting indicates specific penalties for specific crimes against the English language; in this area, justice outweighs mercy.

Criteria for grading: 30% for performance in class, 20% for exam, 50% for papers Conferences: you are expected to put in at least three appearances during the semester. The time to express your problems about papers and exams is before the day on which the paper is due, or the exam is to be taken. If you think that the grade you receive for any of your work is mysterious or unfair, come to my office and demand justice.

Additional Readings

Gesta Romanorum, tr. Swan and Hooper, London 1876 (Dover 1959)

Ad Herrenium, ed. Harry Caplan (Loeb Classical) PA6308 R7 F54

Judson Allen, The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages, Toronto, 1982. pn88 a44 1982

Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, tr. J.J. Parry, NY 1957 H1.F57.

Eric Auerbach, Mimesis, Princeton, 1953 PN56.R3.F53

Giles Constable, "Was There a Medieval Middle Class? Medicores (mediani, medii) in the Middle Ages," in Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Living, ed. Cohn and Epstein, Ann Arbor, 1996, pp.301-323 CB351P671996

Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1991 PA 8035.C6.1991 (reviewed Speculum 68, pp. 1091-1092).

(ed.) Rita Copeland, Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1996 PN671.C75

E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, NY 1953.

Edgar De Bruyne, Esthetics of the Middle Ages BH131.F69

Henri De Lubac, Exégèse médiévale, Paris, 1959 Theo 220.6 L96e 2 vols.

Jane Chance, The Mythographic Chaucer, Minneapolis 1995 PR1933.S35.C43.1995

Georges Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined Chicago, 1980 (original, Paris, 1978) HN425.D78313 1988

Martin Ganim, Chaucer's Theatricality, Princeton 1990 PR1875.P45.G36

Alan Harding, England in the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge, 1993 DA225.H37

Martin Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture Cambridge 1994 PN671.168

H.R. Jauss, "The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature," New Literary History 10 (1979), 181-229. PR1.F69

Steven Justice, Writing and Rebellion, Berkeley 1994 PR275.H5.J87.1994

Richard W. Kaeuper, War, Justice and Public Order, Oxford 1988 DA225.K34.1988

May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, Oxford, 1959 DA5.H5.J87.1994

Jacques LeGoff, Medieval Imagination, PQ155.M27.L413.

C.S. Lewis, Allegory of Love, Oxford 1936 PN688.F36

Dieter Mehl, The Middle English Verse Romances etc, London, 1969 PR321.F68

Don A. Monson, "Andreas Capellanus and the Problem of Irony," Speculum 63 (1988), pp. 539-572.

J.J. Murphy, Medieval Eloquence PN185 M4; Rhetoric in the Middle Ages PN173 M8

Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader, Cambridge, 1996 BR65.A62S76.1996

G.M. Trevelyan, England in the Age of Wycliffe, London, 1904 DA235.T83 1909

Susan Wittig, Stylistic and narrative structures in the Middle English romances, Austin, 1978 PR321.W5

Five articles ostensibly devoted to "The New Philology" in Speculum 65.1 1990)PN661.F26. The issue is discussed by Noel Corbett, "What's New in Philology," Romance Philolgy 46 (1992) 29-39. For Feminism, see Speculum 68 (1993), pp. 305-471.

Check Year's Work in English Studies XPE.58.F19 for most recent work. Truly ambitious people often browse in Year's Work in Modern Language Studies XPB1.F31 to see whether work going on in parallel fields can be of use in studying Medieval English literature.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0807.htm

People with some Latin will be delighted to find Migne's Patrologia Latina on line:

htpp://pld.chadwyck.com/pld/search

as well as Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary; unlike the hard copy, the electronic version can also be used as an English-to-Latin Dictionary:

perseus.tufts.edu