ENGD30 Topics in Medieval Literature: Reception of the Classics in the Middle Ages
Instructor: Kara Gaston
Meeting Times: Mondays 10am - 1pm
The Greco-Roman classics explore the boundary between the human and the divine, the nature of fate, and the shape and significance of history. They depict gods and goddesses, people transformed into trees, gorgons, harpies, and giants. For this reason, it’s a bit surprising that classical literature formed the foundation of the medieval, Christian, educational system. What did students and teachers make of this material, and how did they use it to develop their own literary creations? In this class, we will consider how the classics shaped medieval ideas about reading, interpretation, humanity, and history, and how these works influenced medieval poetry.
Classical texts under consideration will include Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Statius’s Thebaid. Prior knowledge of these texts is not a requirement. Medieval texts under consideration will include Dante Aligheri’s Inferno, Francis Petrarch’s Canzoniere, Guillaume de Machaut’s The Fountain of Love, Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Complaint of Mars, and John Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes. We will also touch on the way that manuscript culture, glosses, and commentaries mediated classical literature for medieval readers. Assignments will include both standard essays and the opportunity to creatively “remake” an episode from a classical text.
Note: Pre-1900 course
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