History of English Literature: The Middle Ages

Reading List. Year I (group A, B). Winter semester 2007/2008

course tutor: dr Rafał Borysławski

Anglo-Saxon literature

Class 1: Introduction to the course

1. Riddle 26

2. Riddle 94

Class 2: The Heroic Verse

1. Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, fragments: Beowulf's fight with Grendel; the death of Beowulf in NAEL (ll. 662-835, pp 46-49; ll. 2712-2891, pp. 90-93)and

2. “The Battle of Maldon” in OAEL

Class 3: Religious Voices:

1. the Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, fragments: the arrival of Christianity to Northumbria; the story of Cædmon

2. “The Dream of the Rood” in OAEL

Class 4: Elegiac Poetry

1. “The Wanderer”

2. “The Seafarer”

Class 5, 6: Love Elegies

1. “Wulf” (“Wulf and Eadwacer”)

2. “Wife's Lament”

3. “Husband's Message”

4. a selection of Anglo-Saxon riddles

Middle English literature

Class 7: Middle English, the beginnings of Arthurian circle and the Anglo-Norman world:

1. Marie de France, Laüstic

2. Layamon (Lawman), Brut, excerpts (the story of Lawman, and fragments from the life of Arthur)

Class 8, 9: Arthurian romance

1. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (the entire work) in OAEL

Class 10, 11, 12: Geoffrey Chaucer:

1. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, trans. by Nevill Coghill.
   Fragments: 1. The General Prologue, 2. The Knight's Tale, 3. The Miller's Tale, 4. The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, 5. The Nun's Priest Tale

Class 13: Medieval theatre

1. The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play in OAEL

Class 14: Semester test and the close of the course

- copies of the works thus marked will be provided in the reading room (yellow folder)

NAEL - The Norton Anthology of English Literature, seventh edition, vol. 1, M. H. Abrams, Stephen Greenblatt et al. eds. (New York, London: W.W.Norton, 2000)

OAEL - The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, F. Kermode and J. Hollander eds. (London: Oxford University Press, 1973).

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