English 533 [82510] - Studies in Medieval Literature (Chaucer and His Contemporaries)

Arthurian Romances in Middle English


Professor Richard Newhauser
Fall Semester, 2010; W 5:40 - 8:30 p.m., LL 45
Office: LL 226B; Telephone: 480-965-8139;
e-mail: Richard.Newhauser@asu.edu
Web Site: http://www.public.asu.edu/~rnewhaus
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.
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    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.

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    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, 2010

    1. (8/25): Introduction; Lupack, pp. 291-327

    2. (9/1): From Malory, Works: "The Tale of the Noble King Arthur that was Emperor Himself through Dignity of his Hands"; essay by Whiting

    3. (9/8): Rosh haShanah: no class

    4. (9/15): Ywain and Gawain; essay by Mills; Heng, pp. 17-61

    5. (9/22): The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain; essays by Barron; Hahn and Symons

    6. (9/29): Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle and The Carle of Carlisle; essays by Boardman; Rogers, "The Percy Folio"

    7. (10/6): The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle; essays by Crane; Symons

    8. (10/13): The Greene Knight; essays by Rogers, "The Grene Knight"; McDonald

    9. (10/20): The Turke and Sir Gawain and King Arthur and King Cornwall; essay by Jost

    10. (10/27): The Awntyrs off Arthur; essays by Fichte; Robson

    11. (11/3): The Avowyng of Arthur; essay by Johnson; Ingham, pp. 161-91

    12. (11/10): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; essay by Pearsall; Cooper, pp. 137-72

    13. (11/17): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; essay by Mann

    14. (11/24): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; essay by Newhauser (to be distributed)

    15. (12/1): From Malory, Works: "The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur saunz Guerdon"; essay by Kennedy

     

    Final Paper due by noon on Friday, December 10, in my mailbox in the English Department office

     

    ACADEMIC DISHONESTY!

    Plagiarism is generally defined as using another's words, ideas, materials or work without acknowledging the source. You are responsible for knowing how to use someone else's work how to acknowledge that source properly. You can learn more about this and other areas of academic integrity by going to:
    http://provost.asu.edu/academicintegrity.

    Plagiarizing, and any other form of dishonesty, will be dealth with severely.

    You might want to read a recent article about plagiarism at US universities that recently appeared in The New York Times:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

     

     

     

     

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