English 212

Other Readings and Media

Burrow and Turville-Petre, eds.: A Book of Middle English (3rd ed.); Pearsall, ed.: Piers Plowman: The C Version; other readings online or in a photocopied reader

Description

"The course aims to introduce students to the Middle English, as a period both of the language and of literary history. There will be three main ""movements"" to the course. The first three weeks will introduce Middle English itself, offering a broad sense of its linguistic characteristics and the history of literary expression in it, with an emphasis on reading; during this time we will read short passages from a wide variety of works. In the three weeks or so to follow, we will do some rather more extended readings in Middle English poetry along with readings in contemporary scholarship, to get a rough sense of the present state of the field. The remainder of the semester will be spent discussing Langland's Piers Plowman. "