English 310 - Middle English Literature

Professor Lauren Kiefer

English Department

Champlain Valley Hall

Professor's Home Page | Course Home | Grades | Middle English Romances | TEAMS Middle English Texts

REQUIRED TEXTS

Maxwell Luria and Richard Hoffman, eds., Middle English Lyrics
Stephen Shepherd, ed., Middle English Romances
James Winny, ed. and trans., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

COURSE GOALS

We have several goals in this course: to enjoy an older, beautiful version of English and the engaging literature written in it; to think and talk among ourselves about literature and history and about the changes and continuities Western or Anglophone culture (in our beliefs, perceptions, likes and dislikes, for example); and to practice writing about literature in a formal, careful, and persuasive way.

We will read most texts in Middle English, much of which is like modern English written by a very bad speller. However, Middle English does vary slightly from place to place and century to century, so some works will be easier to read than others. Many people find it helpful to read the text aloud, and necessary to read each text twice, at least to start with. If you continue to have trouble with Middle English after the first week or two, you may want to arrange to get help from me individually.

Although many of the texts we'll be reading are not available in translation, the Camelot Project http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm provides searchable Middle English texts of many of the readings assigned for this class at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/TEAMS/tmsmenu.htm.

In addition, Middle English Romances has a useful companion web site at http://faculty.smu.edu/sshepher/index.htm.

This page was last updated on 02/05/2004 . 

Questions about this site? Please contact Dr. Lauren Kiefer.