English 533-1001 [84584]
(Religion 591-1004 [87043]) - Studies in Medieval Literature (Chaucer
and His Contemporaries)
Arthurian Romances in
Middle English
Prof. Richard Newhauser
Fall Semester, 2008; W 6:05 - 8:55 p.m., LL 45
Office: LL 226B; Telephone: 480-965-8139;
Office Hours: TTh 1:30
-3:00 p.m., and by appointment
Description:
The progress of Arthurian romance as a chivalric form can be
read in the fortunes of one of its most popular knights: Sir Gawain.
For English audiences, Gawain was the paragon of chivalry itself,
so much so that Chaucer's Squire can find no other way to praise
a knight than to compare him to Gawain, "with his olde curteisye."
But this is also to say that changes in the conception of a knight's
duties as a military and religious figure, changes in the perceived
value of chivalry itself, attach themselves to Gawain's reputation.
He is both the trusted confidant of King Arthur, a fierce warrior,
and a knight favored by women - as well as, in later romances
and popular narrative forms in Middle English, a member of the
Round Table supplanted by Lancelot and unequal to the spiritual
quest of Percival, a knight known to fear for his life, and a
man whose service for women is sometimes improper. The ambiguities
in the cultural position of knighthood, courtesy, chivalry, and
military service are all bound up in the literature of Gawain
and his prowess and failures, and they will be the focus of our
attention in this course.
Texts:
Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Ed.
Thomas Hahn. TEAMS Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo: Medieval
Institute Publications, 1995. ISBN-10: 1-879288-59-1. [available
online at: http://www.library.rochester.edu/camelot/genint.htm
(General Introduction), http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/gawmenu.htm
(links to individual introductions and texts)]
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. J. R.
R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon. 2nd ed. Norman Davis. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1967. ISBN-10: 0198114869.
Ywain and Gawain. In Sir Perceval of
Galles and Ywain and Gawain. Ed. Mary Flowers Braswell.
TEAMS Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications,
1995. ISBN-10: 1-879288-60-5 [online: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/gawmenu.htm]
Malory, Sir Thomas. Works. Ed. Eugene Vinaver.
2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. ISBN-10: 0-19-281217-3.
On reserve:
Barron, W. R. J. "Gologras and Gawain:
A Creative Redaction." Bulletin bibliographique de
la Société internationale arthurienne / Bibliographical
Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 26 (1974):
173-85. [Hayden Journals: PN57.A6Z991]
Boardman, Philip C. "Middle English Arthurian Romance:
The Repetition and Reputation of Gawain." In The Vitality
of the Arthurian Legend: A Symposium. Ed. Mette Pors.
Odense: Odense University Press, 1988. Pp. 71-90. Reprint in
Gawain: A Casebook, 255-72.
A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Ed. Derek Brewer
and Jonathan Gibson. Arthurian Studies, 38. Cambridge, Engl.:
D. S. Brewer, 1997. [PR1972.G353 C66 1997]
Cooper, Helen. The English Romance in Time. Transforming
Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. [PR321.C66 2004]
Crane, Susan. "Alison's Incapacity and Poetic Instability
in the Wife of Bath's Tale." PMLA 102,1 (1987):
20-28. [JSTOR]
Fichte, Joerg O. "The Awyntyrs off Arthure:
An Unconscious Change of the Paradigm of Adventure." In
The Living Middle Ages: Studies in Mediaeval English Literature
and its Tradition: a Festschrift for Karl Heinz Göller.
Ed. Uwe Böker, Manfred Markus, and Rainer Schöwerling.
Stuttgart: Belser, 1989. Pp. 129-36. [PR255.L58x 1989]
Gawain: A Casebook. Ed. Raymond H. Thompson
and Keith Busby. Arthurian Characters and Themes, 8. New York:
Routledge, 2006. [PN686.G3G39 2006]
Hahn, Thomas, and Dana M. Symons. "Middle English Romance."
In A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture
c. 1350-c. 1500. Ed. Peter Brown. Oxford: Blackwell,
2007. Pp. 341-57. [PR255.C653 2007]
Heng, Geraldine. Empire of Magic. Medieval Romance
and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2003. [PR321 .H46 2003; electronic book]
Ingham, Patricia Clare. Sovereign Fantasies. Arthurian
Romance and the Making of Britain. Philadelphia: The
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. [PR328.I54 2001]
Johnson, David. "The Real and the Ideal: Attitudes to
Loves and Chivalry in The Avowyng of King Arthur."
In Companion to Middle English Romance. Ed.
Henk Aertsen and Alasdair A. MacDonald. Amsterdam: VU University
Press, 1990. Pp. 189-208. [PR255.C655x 1990]
Jost, Jean. "The Role of Violence in Aventure: 'The
Ballad of King Arthur and the King of Cornwall' and 'The Turke
and Gowin.' " Arthurian Interpretations 2,2
(1988): 47-57. [will be distributed]
Kennedy, Beverly. Knighthood in the Morte Darthur.
Cambridge, Engl.: Brewer, 1985. Excerpt reprinted as "Gawain
and Heroic Knighthood in Malory" in Gawain: A Casebook,
287-95.
Lupack, Alan. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature
and Legend. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,
2005. [DA152.5.A7L87 2005]
Mann, Jill. "Price and Value in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight." In Chaucer to Spenser: A Critical Reader.
Ed. Derek Pearsall. Oxford, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999.
Pp. 187-205. [PR260.C47 1999]
McDonald, Nicola. "A Polemical Introduction." In
Pulp Fictions of Medieval England. Ed. Nicola McDonald.
Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2004. Pp.
1-21. [PR321.P85 2004]
Mills, Maldwyn. "Ywain and Gawain." In The
Arthur of the English: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval English
Life and Literature. Ed. W. R. J. Barron. Arthurian Literature
in the Middle Ages, 2. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1999.
Pp. 117-24. [PR328.A89 1999]
Pearsall, Derek. "Courtesy and Chivalry in Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight: the Order of Shame and the Invention of
Embarrassment." In A Companion to the Gawain-Poet,
351-62.
Robson, Margaret. "From Beyond the Grave: Darkness at
Noon in The Awntyrs off Arthure." In The
Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance. Ed. Ad Putter
and Jane Gilbert. Harlow, Engl, etc.: Longman, 2000. Pp. 219-36.
[PR321.S65 2000]
Rogers, Gillian. "The Grene Knight."
In A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, 365-72.
_____. "The Percy Folio Manuscript Revisited."
In Romance in Medieval England. Ed. Maldwyn Mills,
Jennifer Fellows, and Carol M. Meale. Cambridge, Engl.: D. S.
Brewer, 1991. Pp. 39-64. [PR321.R67 1991]
Symons, Dana M. "Comic Pleasures: Chaucer and Popular
Romance." In Medieval English Comedy. Ed.
Sandra M. Hordis and Paul Hardwick. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.
Pp. 83-109. [PR643.C67 M43 2007]
Whiting, B. J. "Gawain: His Reputation, His Courtesy,
and His Appearance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale." Mediaeval
Studies 9 (1947): 189-234. Reprint in Gawain: A
Casebook, 45-94.
Resources:
Major morphological and phonological markers for Middle English
dialects: click here
Requirements:
An oral report on the topic you have chosen to work on in consultation
with me and a final paper.
Syllabus
Fall Semester, 2008
1. (8/27): Introduction; Lupack, pp. 291-327
2. (9/3): From Malory, Works: "The Tale
of the Noble King Arthur that was Emperor Himself through Dignity
of his Hands"; essay by Whiting
3. (9/10): The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain;
essays by Barron; Hahn and Symons
4. (9/17): Ywain and Gawain; essay by Mills;
Heng, pp. 17-61
5. (9/24): Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle
and The Carle of Carlisle; essays by Boardman; Rogers,
"The Percy Folio"
6. (10/1): The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle;
essays by Crane; Symons
7. (10/8): Yom Kippur: No class
8. (10/15): The Greene Knight; essays by Rogers,
"The Grene Knight"; McDonald
9. (10/22): The Turke and Sir Gawain and King
Arthur and King Cornwall; essay by Jost
10. (10/29): The Awntyrs off Arthur; essays by
Fichte; Robson
11. (11/5): The Avowyng of Arthur; essay by Johnson;
Ingham, pp. 161-91
12. (11/12): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
essay by Pearsall; Cooper, pp. 137-72
13. (11/19): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
essay by Mann
14. (11/26): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight;
essay by Newhauser (to be distributed)
15. (12/3): From Malory, Works: "The Most
Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur saunz Guerdon"; essay by
Kennedy
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY!
In the "Student Academic Integrity Policy" manual,
ASU defines "Plagiarism [as] using another's words, ideas,
materials or work without properly acknowledging and documenting
the source. Students are responsible for knowing the rules governing
the use of another's work or materials and for acknowledging and
documenting the source appropriately." You can find this
definition at:
http://www.asu.edu/studentaffairs/studentlife/judicial/academic_integrity.htm#definitions
Academic dishonesty, including inappropriate collaboration,
will not be tolerated. There are severe sanctions for cheating,
plagiarizing, and any other form of dishonesty.
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© Richard Newhauser. Last revisions to this page:
October 5, 2010