Popular representations of the Middle Ages often depict medieval societies as hegemonic and homogeneous. This module examines medieval texts that offer a counterpoint to such representations. These texts fall at interstices of categories used to study the Middle Ages, and you will use them to interrogate those categories and come to a fuller understanding of the different forms, concerns, and cultures of medieval literature in English and beyond. How do modern understandings of medieval gender, sexuality, politics, religious practice, personhood and national identity obfuscate the complexity of the Middle Ages, and how do medieval texts actually treat these categories?

In order to answer this question, we will read a range of well-known and lesser-studied masterpieces of medieval English and European literature. This may include selections from Geoffrey Chaucer’sCanterbury Tales (such as the Friar’s Tale), lais by Marie de France, Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, and the Middle Scots poetry of  Robert Henryson. You will also read medieval texts often overlooked in literary scholarship, such as short medieval lyric poems and riddles, the letters and household documents written by the Paston family, and the anonymous Middle English St. Erkenwald, in which the corpse of a reanimated pagan judge is confronted by a Christian saint. We may also examine accounts of religious women, such as excerpts from the medieval autobiography of Margery Kempe and the Shewings of Julian of Norwich. These may be discussed alongside non-European texts from Japan and Persia to consider how the category of ‘medieval’ suggests geographic boundaries as well as temporal ones.

• read Middle English in the original language with little guidance and engage sensitively with a range of medieval narrative practices
• analyse the cultural complexity of the Middle Ages with respect to, for example, gender, sexuality, national boundaries, religious identity and practice, and ethnicity
• use theoretical approaches (which may include new historicism, gender studies, feminist theory, cultural materialism, ecocriticism, queer theory, and race/ethnicity studies) with care and specificity to gain a deeper understanding of literary texts
• evaluate and participate in scholarly debates about questions of authorship, composition and provenance

The module will comprise one lecture (x 1h) and one seminar (x 2hrs) per week.

The module will be delivered through a variety of learning methods which may include a combination of digital learning activities to support face-to-face sessions. 

Academic skills: this module will develop and practise skills in close reading, independent scholarly research and critical thinking, while paying attention to different dialects of historical languages, and the ability to consider a wide range of texts from different but interrelated cultures when producing a critical argument. This requires careful scholarship, sensitivity to language through close reading and a broader historical awareness of social change.

Employability skills: these include the ability to synthesise information, participate in group-based discussion, to negotiate different and conflicting standpoints, to communicate ideas and to produce clear, informed arguments in a professional manner. Student-led research will encourage skills of information collation, selection and synthesis.

Critical Analysis: 30%

Essay: 70%

Formative writing is optional for this module. You may submit up to 25% of the length of your final essay for feedback. You can choose between submitting, as appropriate, an essay plan/structure, synopses of essay topic options (if undecided) or sample paragraph/s. Students are able to receive advice and support relating to any aspect of assessment from module leaders in office hours and in class.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR REASSESSMENT IN THIS MODULE:

As with School policy, failed or unsubmitted assessments can be retaken during the August resit period.

Course texts may include the following:

• St. Erkenwald
• Lyrics, riddles and short poems
• Marie de France, Lais 
• Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
• Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur
• The Danse Macabre and memento mori traditions
• Medieval religious women and early auto/biography
• Middle Scots: Robert Henryson
• The Paston Letters
• Beyond Europe: Japan and Persia

Middle English texts will be read in their original language, with extra help given for any texts in early Middle English or difficult dialects. Old English and non-English texts will be read in translation, with additional support for those who wish to learn the basics of Old English language and poetic structure. This module is therefore appropriate for students who have studied Middle English before, as well as those who have not.