English 533-1001 [22689] (Rel 591-1002 [25555]) - Studies in Medieval Literature:

Chaucer and His Contemporaries: Imagining Love in Middle English

Professor Richard Newhauser

Spring Semester, 2009; TTh 6:00 - 7:15 p.m., LL 240

Office: LL 226B, Tel.: 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 late Middle Ages in England has been characterized by Richard Firth Green as a period of a crisis of truth in the area of law. One might say, as well, that the same period experienced a crisis of love. Love was understood as the ideal bond of affection uniting men and women in amorous relationships, connecting relatives in the same family, holding together the members of society in a social union, and regulating the ties between humanity and God. And in the view of late-medieval English authors, the bonds of love in all of these categories were anything but ideal. To document this critical perspective of love, we will read Middle English texts of romantic love (Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and other love poems, and Henryson's Testament of Cresseid), of the love that should hold together the political union (Gower's Confessio Amantis and selections from Usk's Testament of Love), and of the love of God (Pearl and Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Love). All texts will be in Middle English in accessible, annotated editions.

 

Reading List:

  • Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987. [ISBN: 0395290317]
  • The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet. Trans. Casey Finch. Ed. Malcolm Andrew, Ronald Waldron, and Clifford Peterson. Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1993. [ISBN: 0520078713]
  • Gower, John. Confessio Amantis. Ed. Russell A. Peck. Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 9. Toronto, etc.: University of Toronto Press, 1980; reprint 1986. [ISBN: 0802064388].
  • Henryson, Robert. The Poems of Robert Henryson. Ed. Robert L. Kindrick. TEAMS Middle English Texts Series. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997. [ISBN: 187928894-x]
  • Julian of Norwich. The Writings of Julian of Norwich. A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love. Ed. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. Brepols Medieval Women Series. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. [ISBN 9780271025476]

    • Works on Reserve:

  • Aers, David. Chaucer. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, 1986. (library reserve)
  • Aers, David. "The Self Mourning: Reflections on Pearl." Speculum 68,1 (1993): 54-73. (library journal)
  • Blamires, Alcuin. "The 'Religion of Love' in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Medieval Visual Art." In Word and Visual Imagination: Studies in the Interaction of English Literature and the Visual Arts. Ed. Karl Josef Höltgen, Peter M. Daly, and Wolfgang Lottes. Erlanger Forschungen, Reihe A, Bd. 43. Erlangen: Universitätsbund Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1988. Pp. 11-31. (library reserve)
  • Cartlidge, Neil. " 'Nat that I chalange any thyng of right': Love, Loyalty, and Legality in the Franklin's Tale." In Writings on Love in the English Middle Ages. Pp. 115-30.
  • Dunnigan, Sarah M. "Feminizing the Text, Feminizing the Reader? The Mirror of 'Feminitie' in the Testament of Cresseid." Studies in Scottish Literature 33-34 (2004): 107-23. (library journal)
  • Kelly, Henry Ansgar. Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1975. (library reserve)
  • Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love. A Study in Medieval Tradition. London, etc.: Oxford University Press, 1936; reprint, 1975. (library reserve)
  • Nicholson, Peter. Love and Ethics in Gower's Confessio amantis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. (library reserve)
  • O'Donoghue, Bernard. "The Reality of Courtly Love." In Writings on Love in the English Middle Ages. Pp. 7-24.
  • Patterson, Lee. "Christian and Pagan in The Testament of Cresseid." Philological Quarterly 52 (1973): 696-714. (library journal)
  • Patterson, Lee. " 'Experience woot well it is noght so': Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale." In The Wife of Bath. Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996. Pp. 133-54. (library reserve)
  • Peck, Russell A. Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1978. (library reserve)
  • Staley, Lynn. "Pearl and the Contingencies of Love and Piety." In Medieval Literature and Historical Inquiry: Essays in Honor of Derek Pearsall. Ed. David Aers. Cambridge, Engl.: D. S. Brewer, 2000. Pp. 83-114. (library reserve)
  • Watson, Nicholas. "The Composition of Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Love." Speculum 68 (1993): 637-83. (library journal)
  • Wetherbee, Winthrop. Chaucer and the Poets: An Essay on Troilus and Criseyde. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984. (library reserve)
  • Windeatt, Barry. "The Art of Mystical Loving: Julian of Norwich." In The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Papers Read at the Exeter Symposium, July 1980. Ed. Marion Glasscoe. [Exeter, Devon]: University of Exeter, 1980. Pp. 55-71. (library reserve)
  • Windeatt, Barry. "Love." In A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c. 1350-c. 1500. Ed. Peter Brown. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, 42. Maldon, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Pp. 322-38. (library reserve)
  • Windeatt, Barry. Troilus and Criseyde. Oxford Guides to Chaucer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. (library reserve for English 416)
  • Writings on Love in the English Middle Ages. Ed. Helen Cooney. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. (electronic book)

    •  

    Requirements:

    An oral report on the topic you have chosen to work on in consultation with me, synopses of essays to be read for class, and a final paper. You must meet with me during my office hours (or make an appointment) to discuss your topic.

     

    Syllabus
    Spring Semester, 2009

    1. T 1/20: Introduction
    2. Th 1/22: No Class

    3. T 1/27: Love as a Universal and Social Principle: John Gower, Confessio Amantis, Prologus (pp. 1-32); Windeatt, "Love"
    4. Th 1/29: John Gower, Confessio Amantis, Prologus (pp. 1-32); Peck, pp. 1-23

    5. T 2/3: John Gower, Confessio Amantis, from Book Five (pp. 238-91); Kelly, pp. 121-60; Nicholson, pp. 254-309
    6. Th 2/5: Romantic Love and the Ideal of Marriage I: Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Franklin's Prologue and Tale" from The Canterbury Tales (Riverside, pp. 178-89); Lewis, pp. 1-43; O'Donoghue

    7. T 2/10: Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Franklin's Prologue and Tale" from The Canterbury Tales (Riverside, pp. 178-89); Cartlidge
    8. Th 2/12: Romantic Love and the Ideal of Marriage II: Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" from The Canterbury Tales (Riverside, pp. 105-22); Aers, Chaucer, pp. 62-102, 107-08

    9. T 2/17: Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" from The Canterbury Tales (Riverside, pp. 105-22); Patterson, "Experience"
    10. Th 2/19: Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" and Tale from The Canterbury Tales (Riverside, pp. 105-22)

    11. T 2/24: Romantic Love and its Failure: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Riverside, pp. 473-585); Windeatt, Troilus and Criseyde, pp. 215-28
    12. Th 2/26: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Riverside, pp. 473-585); Wetherbee, pp. 53-86

    13. T 3/3: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Riverside, pp. 473-585)
    14. Th 3/5: No Class

    (3/8-15, No class: Spring Break)

    15. T 3/17: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Riverside, pp. 473-585); Blamires
    16. Th 3/19: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Riverside, pp. 473-585)

    17. T 3/24: Romantic Love and Redemption?: Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid (ed. Kindrick, pp. 147-85); Patterson, "Christian and Pagan"
    18. Th 3/26: No Class

    19. T 3/31: Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid (ed. Kindrick, pp. 147-85); Dunnigan
    20. Th 4/2: Robert Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid (ed. Kindrick, pp. 147-85)

    21. T 4/7: Love, Death, and Redemption: Pearl (Works, 44-101); Aers, "The Self Mourning"
    22. Th 4/9: Pearl (Works, 44-101)

    23. T 4/14: Pearl (Works, 44-101); Staley
    24. Th 4/16: Pearl (Works, 44-101)

    25. T 4/21: Love as the Desire for God: Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love (Writings, 122-381); Watson
    26. Th 4/23: Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love (Writings, 122-381)

    27. T 4/28: Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love (Writings, 122-381); Windeatt, "The Art"
    28. Th 4/30: Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love (Writings, 122-381)

    29. T 5/5: Final Paper due today

     

     

     

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