English 537 – Studies in Middle English Literature
On the Margins of the Medieval
Professor Amy Vines
Tuesday, 6:30-9:20; MHRA 3209
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-4 & by appt.; MHRA 3113
E-mail:
This course surveys the literary representations of the physical, social, and religious outcasts of the Middle Ages who often existed at the margins of society. Please remember, these categories of “otherness” and even the term “outcast” itself are arbitrary concepts that were just as troubled and contested in the medieval period as they are today. During the thousand or so years that the course readings span, one thing remains constant: the definition of any outcast is primarily a matter of perception. Throughout this course, we will keep these questions in mind when we read and discuss these texts: who is defining the individual as an outsider? What criteria are being applied? Who benefits from these assumptions and in what way? How do medieval perceptions of outcasts speak to contemporary debates about race, class, and religion?
Required Texts:
Burton Raffel, trans. Yvain: The Knight of the Lion (Yale UP, 1987)
Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence, Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages (Routledge, 1991)
Lynn Staley, ed. The Book of Margery Kempe (Norton, 2001)
The Middle English Breton Lays, ed. Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury (TEAMS 1995)
Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, ed. John O’Meara (Penguin, 1983)
Supplemental Readings as pdfs on the BlackBoard page [BB]
Course Requirements:
· In-class seminar presentation (approx. 30-35 minutes)
· Research paper précis and annotated bibliography (due April 10)
· 15-20 page final research paper (due April 29)
Reading Schedule:
1/14 Course Introduction
1/21 Monstrous Origins – Outcasts and the Foundation of Britain
Primary: Middle English Prose Brut Chronicle, “Albina Prologue” [BB]
Secondary: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” [BB]
Tamar Drukker, “Thirty-Three Murderous Sisters” [BB]
“Introduction” to The Monstrous Middle Ages [BB]
(Skim) “The Medieval Context” (in Richards)
1/28 “There Be Monsters Here”: Medieval Conceptions of the World
Primary: Gerald of Wales, History and Topography of Ireland, pp. 23-92 (with particular emphasis on Part 3).
Secondary: Asa Simon Mittman, “The Other Close at Hand…” [BB]
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Hybrids, Monsters, and Borderlands…” [BB]
Find several images of the Hereford Map online!
2/4 Medieval Lycanthropy
Primary: Marie de France, Bisclavret [BB]; Arthur and Gorlagon [BB]
Secondary: Jeff Massey, “The Werewolf at the Head Table” [BB]
[Recommended] Leslie Dunton-Downer, “Wolf Man” [BB]
2/11 Leprosy & Disease
Primary: Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid [BB] and Amis and Amiloun [BB]
Secondary: “Lepers” (in Richards)
[Recommended] Anne Marie D’Arcy, “‘Into the kirk wald not hir self present’: Leprosy, Blasphemy & Heresy in Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid” [BB]
2/18 Torture & Gender – Exclusion & Re-incorporation
Primary: Medieval Saints’ Lives: St. Margaret, St. Katherine, and St. Ursula [BB]
Secondary: Sarah Salih, “Performing Virginity: Sex and Violence in the Katherine Group” [BB]
Robert Mills, “Can the Virgin Martyr Speak?” [BB]
2/25 Women Exiled
Primary: Emaré (in Laskaya and Salisbury); Chaucer, Man of Law’s Tale [BB]
Secondary: Gail Ashton, “Her Father’s Daughter” [BB]
3/4 Saint or Heretic? – Crying As Defiance
Primary: The Book of Margery Kempe, Staley
Secondary: Selections in the back of the Staley edition by Atkinson (p. 225-on), Staley (p. 236-on), and Ashley (p. 264-on)
[Recommended] Ruth Shklar, “Cobham’s Daughter: The Book of Margery Kempe and the Power of Heterodox Thinking” [BB]
3/11 Spring Break – Class Canceled
3/18 Anti-Semitism
Primary: The Croxton Play of the Sacrament [BB]; Chaucer’s The Prioress’s Tale [BB]
Secondary: Sylvia Tomasch, “Postcolonial Chaucer & the Virtual Jew” [BB]
“Jews” (in Richards)
[Recommended] Louise Fradenburg, “Criticism, Anti-Semitism, and the Prioress’s Tale” [BB]
3/25 A Boy and His Lion
Primary: Yvain: The Knight of the Lion, Raffel
Secondary: Marc Pelen, “Madness in Yvain Reconsidered” [BB]
4/1 The Problem With Chivalry
Primary: Sir Orfeo (in Laskaya and Salisbury); Sir Gowther (in Laskaya and Salisbury)
Secondary: Michael Uebel, “The Foreigner Within” [BB]
[Recommended] Elliot Kendall, “Family, Familia, and the Uncanny in Sir Orfeo” [BB]
4/8 Medieval Criminality and Heroism
Primary: Robin Hood Historical Documents [BB]; Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter [BB]
Secondary: Antha Cotten-Spreckelmeyer, “Robin Hood: Outlaw or Exile?” [BB]
Crystal Kirgiss, “Popular Devot. & Prosperity Gospel in Early Robin Hood Tales” [BB]
[Recommended] Barbara Hanawalt, “Ballads and Bandits: Fourteenth-Century Outlaws and the Robin Hood Poems” [BB]
PRECIS & ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
4/15 Literature as Rehabilitation
Primary: Hoccleve, The Complaint, The Dialogue, The Tale of Jereslaus’s Wife, The Tale of Jonathas [BB]
Secondary: James Simpson, “Madness and Texts: Hoccleve’s Series” [BB]
[Recommended] Karen Winstead, “‘I am al othir to yow than yee wene’: Hoccleve, Women, and the Series” [BB]
4/22 Course Review
4/29 Final Papers Due to my Department Mailbox
Grade Breakdown (MA and PhD Students):
· Oral Presentation: 30%
· Final Research Paper: 50%
· Class Participation: 20%
Grade Breakdown (BA Students):
· Précis and Annotated Bibliography: 20%
· Final Research Paper: 50%
· Class Participation: 30%
Attendance & Participation: Since this is a graduate class, you are expected to attend all the class meetings unless you have a serious illness or emergency. This course requires your enthusiastic and informed participation in class discussions. I expect you to come to each class with ideas about the readings, questions, suggestions, etc. You need to read the texts thoroughly before class and think about them critically. I would like each student to bring a couple of discussion questions (nothing to hand in) and/or a particular passage in the reading that you’d like to discuss. Although we might not be able to discuss everyone’s questions during class, it will help to come in with a few points of critical intervention in hand.
Oral Presentation: During the semester, the MA and Ph.D. students will be responsible for a 30-minute oral presentation on one of the primary texts. Rather than reading a formal, conference-style paper, you will need to discuss 3 or 4 specific questions or issues you identified in the text and explore some textual cruxes that struck you during your reading. These presentations might incorporate historical, theoretical, and/or cultural background, point to several key passages to consider, and should conclude with some questions or topics to facilitate the class discussion.
Précis & Annotated Bibliography: (Due 4/8) In preparation for the final research paper, each student will write a 250-word précis that explains the text(s) and topic you plan to investigate for your seminar paper. This précis should identify a thesis you will develop in your final papers, provide your own critical perspective on the text, and raise questions you would like to explore in your research papers. If you are doing the course unit, your 250-word abstract should describe the theme you are thinking about using to organize your course, as well as one or two specific texts you plan to include and the rationale for doing so.
· For either project, you will also include an annotated bibliography with at least 5 critical sources. These sources should represent an awareness of the current critical discussion about the text and specific topic you are researching in your paper or project.
Research Paper: (Due 4/29) Undergraduates will write a 10-15 page research paper at the end of the course on a seminar text of your choice; graduate students will write a 15-20 page paper. This paper should ideally arise from your initial précis and annotated bibliography; the paper must make an argument that is supported with textual evidence, and it must contribute to a larger scholarly conversation. Your goal is to provide a thoughtful and convincing argument about the text you have chosen that is supported by both close reading of the work (textual analysis) and the critical use of relevant secondary sources. You are not looking to have the last word on the text at hand, but rather to contribute an interesting and original piece to an ongoing scholarly discourse.