English 190

Book List

Chaucer, Geoffrey: Dream Visions and Other Poems; Dante: The Portable Dante; Milton, John: Paradise Lost; Minnis, A. J.: Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism; Ovid: The Metamorphoses; Virgil: The Aeneid

Description

Although late antique and medieval Christian authors routinely decried the falsehood of pagan literature, they could hardly get enough of it. Pagan mythology became not only a major inspiration of medieval poetry and philosophy but even a part of elementary education. Virgil became an authority on poetry, and his account of the Trojan War was adapted into an origin narrative for many European countries. Plato became an important inspiration for natural philosophy—what we now call science—and spurred thoughts on the very nature of fiction. If pagan mythology was so bad, why couldn’t people stop reading it? To answer this question, we will read texts from England, France, Italy, and Scandinavia, focusing on the ways each uses and transforms pagan myth for its own end.

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.