Monsters, Sex, Violence, and Some Pleasantries

The above is a title of a junior level class I'm teaching this semester.  It's a new prep.  I am trying to have a regular rotation of Anglo-Saxon, Chaucer and His Age, Middle English lit, Medieval Lit (outside the English tradition mostly), and Shakespeare.  Shakespeare has to be taught yearly, and I have other course commitments, so I've done Chaucer, and now Medieval Lit, and will likely do Anglo-Saxon next fall (Spring will be British and World Poetry, a lib ed level course, chiefly epics, Shakespeare again, and a grad level Middle English, and likely an online continuation of Latin Readings, and directed readings in OE, and a few theses to direct, chair duties, faculty senate committees, and so on). I'm not entirely happy, but I'm hoping some things won't take as much time as I have scheduled so that I can stretch the amount of time devoted to others.  

1. Introductions and Backgrounds
2. EPIC I: Dares and the Matter of Troy
3. Epic II: Germanic Epic
4. Epic III: Celtic Epic
5. Chanson de Geste
6. Romance I
7. Romance II
8. Romance III (Prologue, 5 Lovers, Khalifah)
9. Ghosts, Demons, Devils and things
10. Bestiary, Beast Fables
11. Whale Week!
12. Sinbad the Sailor!
13. Fridhjof, Etc.
14. Volsunga
15. Kraki
16. Ali Baba

MISSING: Bestiary, Fabliaux, Beast Fable, Saint’s Lives, Travelers Tales

Aug. 27—Syllabus

Aug. 29—Foundations 1&2

Aug 31—Wonders of the East, God’s Tumbler

Sept 3—Labor Day

Sept. 5—Galloway Intro and Chap. 1 to pg. 17, 64-68, ; Lewis 1 and 2; Dares to pg. 16;

Sept. 7—Dares finish, Group Assigns

Sept. 10—Hildebrandslied, Ludwigslied, Galloway 17-33;

Sept. 12—Waltharius and Waldere

Sept. 14—Planctus of William Longsword, Lewis 3

Sept. 17—The Tain, before the and I, II, III

Sept 19—IV, V, VI, VII, VIII (pg. 137)

Sept. 21—IX, X, XI

Sept. 24—Finish Tain, Lewis 4

Sept. 26--Roland, Galloway 33-48

Sept. 28—Roland, Finish, Galloway 74-82

Oct. 1—Lewis 5-6; Capellanus, Romance of the Rose selections, Aug. and Jerome on Marriage, etc.

Oct. 3—Lewis 7; Lanval

Oct. 5—Lewis 8; Yvain

Oct. 8—Yvain finish, The Marvelous

Oct. 10—Lancelot, The Wild

Oct. 12—Lancelot, Finish

Oct. 15—Prologue, The Tales of the Hunchback

Oct. 17—Midterm

Oct. 19 –No Class, Faculty Duty Day

Oct. 22—Porter and Three Girls…whole

Oct. 24—Maruf the Cobbler, Epilogue

Oct. 26--5 Lovers, the donkey, the historic fart

Oct. 29—Ghosts I

Oct. 31—Demons (Genesis A and B), Muspilli, Man who visited heaven and hell, Visio Pauli

Nov. 2—Ghosts and Demons and an Angel (more ghost stories, visions of hell, of heaven)

Nov. 5 Bestiary, Physiologus, etc. Liber Monstrorum

Nov. 7—Beast Fables—Reynard the Fox

Nov. 9—Beast Fables—Bisclavet (Marie de France)

Nov. 12—No classes, Vets’ Day

Nov. 14—WHALES: Within, rvw. Bestiary, Columba and the Whale, other snippets

Nov. 16.—Voyage of St. Brendan

Nov. 19—Sinbad the Sailor, the whole

Nov. 21—No class, on Duty

Nov. 23—Day after T-DAY!!

Nov. 26—Volsunga, Ross 2 (big break, big reading)

Nov. 28—Volsunga Saga

Nov. 30—Hrolf Kraki Ross 3,

Dec. 3—Hrolf Kraki

Dec. 5—Hrolf Kraki Ross 7

Dec. 7—Aladdin and the Lamp

Dec. 10—Aladdin; Last Day.

Group I—Makers of the Middle Ages

Group II—other genres

So, the second in the Medieval series is this one.  There is much tweaking to be done in the process of teaching sadly. But the students are game.

Texts I chose, not entirely happily:
Lewis, Discarded Image
Galloway, Medieval Literature and Culture (which is really about ENGLISH lit, but it was cheaper than most of the other texts I looked at and covers the material).

Song of Roland (Harrison)
Selections from 1001 Nights (Penguin)
Arthurian Romances (Penguin)
Volsunga Saga (Penguin)
Saga of Hrolf Kraki (Penguin)

The rest, both secondary material and primary provided either via library readings or photocopies.   Here then is the current, tentative schedule of readings to be adjusted with more or less as need requires: