Survey of Medieval Literature

Catalog description

This course is a survey of the more prominent works of the Spanish Middle Ages - El Cantar de Mío Cid, El libro del buen amor, El conde Lucanor, and La tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea o La Celestina - which reflect the religious, spiritual, and intellectual currents of Medieval Spain. In the form of seminar discussions and independent study, students will examine the aesthetic, social, and political trends of the ninth through fifteenth centuries, as well as the most important themes writers developed in pre-modern Iberia: honor, authority, vice and virtue, pilgrimage, devotion, and humor. These themes will be explored in the major works (primary sources), which will be complemented by secondary source readings and each student's independent research. The writers and texts studied in this course will also be viewed in the context of the greater artistic production in Spain and Medieval Europe.