English 190

Research Seminar: Monsters, Exiles, and Outlaws in Medieval Literature

Book List

Bernard Scudder, trans.: The Saga of Grettir the Strong; Bjork, Robert E., ed. & trans.: Old English Shorter Poems: Wisdom and Lyric; Byock, Jesse L., trans.: The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki; Hobsbawm, E. J.: Bandits; Knight, Stephen and Ohlgren,Thomas, eds.: Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales; Kunz, Keneva, trans.: The Vinland Sagas; Liuzza, R. M., ed. & trans.: Beowulf; McKim, Anne, ed.: The Wallace: Selections; Palsson, Hermann and Edwards, Paul, trans.: Eyrbygga saga

Other Readings and Media

Shorter readings and additional secondary literature will be made available on bcourses.

Description

This course focuses on murderers, monsters, and thieves. Zombies, although not our main focus, also arise. Such figures are excluded from society and cut off from their fellow human beings, whether because they have committed an unpardonable crime or are undead. This course examines how that exclusion helps to define the society doing it as well as the outcasts themselves. What crimes are unpardonable, and why? Why are some outcasts exiled or outlawed, some treated as monsters, and some actually monstrous? What does it mean to be an outlaw, someone literally outside the law? Over the course of the semester, we will read texts from medieval England and Scandinavia featuring such characters, with an eye toward their rhetorical construction as a society's insiders and outsiders.

This section of English 190 satisfies the pre-1800 requirement for the English major.

Please read the paragraph about English 190 on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.

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