Wednesdays, 10-12
Vuille Juliette
Arts Faculty, English Department
This course introduces students to the English Middle Ages (c.450-c.1500) and aims to provide them with the philological skills required to engage with some of the vernacular cultures that flourished in England during this period. The most basic principles of Old and Middle English grammar will be taught with a view to making texts written in these languages accessible; we will also devote attention to the various material, historical, and intellectual contexts in which these texts were produced and which they, in turn, helped to shape.
Set readings will include, in Old English, prognostics (brief predictions for the future), medical and historical texts, as well as some of the most beautiful poetic texts from the pre-Conquest period (Judith, Beowulf). The later medieval period will be represented by anchoritic and mystical writings, as well as a medieval romance and extracts from the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Set texts:
Students will be expected to buy The Cambridge Old English Reader, ed. Richard Marsden, 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 2015.
- Enseignant·e: Juliette Vuille