ENG 280TRomancing the Middle Ages

Catalog

ENG 280T Romancing the Middle Ages - The modern Romance genre is often dismissed as unworthy of serious study, yet it is difficult to deny that its tropes and patterns continually construct cultural norms about love, gender, sexuality, and race. This course will introduce students to the notably different genre of Medieval Romance, as well as to its antecedents, interrogating those texts in their own places and moments and considering their influence on both medieval and modern lives and literatures. Pre-modern texts-The Ring of the Dove, Arabic and Provencal poetry, Roman d'Eneas, Erec and Enide, Drosilla and Charikles, Silence, Iwein, The Tale of Bayad and Riyad, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer's Knight's Tale, and Morte Darthur- will represent a variety of geographic areas and deliberately engage with queer desire and transgender representation, as well as racial and religious difference. Students will supply a modern romantic text of their own choosing to introduce to the class and to analyze in both discussion and in written assignments.