Engl. 624: Medieval Dreams and Visions
Tuesday 3:30-6:10 pm; COM 206
Texts:
Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy
Petrarch: The Secret
Chaucer: Dream Visions
William Langland: Piers Plowman: A New Translation of the B Text
Anon: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Pearl
course reader, available at Cal Copies
course texts available on Blackboard
Course Requirements:
I. Attendance and active participation in all seminar meetings (15%)
II. Weekly response papers, approximately 1 page, single-spaced. These papers are informal, but should address the readings and topics due that day in class, focusing on interpretive issues or questions that strike you as being interesting. Graded satisfactory/unsatisfactory. (30%)
III. One formal presentation, using PowerPoint, on a topic relevant to the class. Topics follow in schedule, below. (15%)
IV. Seminar paper, approximately 15 pages, typed, double-spaced, on a topic of your choice, which discusses one or more of the literary texts of the class in relation to some critical perspective or concept. (40%)
Schedule:
Week 1: Introduction and sign-ups for presentations
Week 2: Reading: (on Blackboard) Dream of the Rood; Romance of the Rose; Christine de Pizan’s response; Christine’s Vision; Peter Brown, “Middle English Dream Visions”; and “Commentary on the Dream of Scipio,” in Dream Visions, appendix
Week 3: Dreaming and Desire
Reading: Dante, Vita Nuova; Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione; Foucault, “Dream and Existence” (on Blackboard)
Presentation Topic: What is the connection between Boccaccio and Dante? How do dreams function for both?
Week 4: Waking Visions and Desire
Margery Kempe; Julian of Norwich, chaps 3, 4, 5, 7, 58, 59, 60; Marie de France, “Yonec,” Augustine’s Confessions VI. 15 and IX.10
Presentation Topic: What is “mysticism” in the Middle Ages? What was the typical mystic experience?
Week 5: Dreaming and Desire
Chaucer: Parliament of Fowls; A. C. Spearing, “Parliament of Fowls as Dream Poetry” in appendix; Charles Muscatine, “Chaucer’s Early Poems” in appendix
Presentation Topic: Allegory and Dream Visions as a medieval genre
Week 6: Predestination and Foreboding
Reading: Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”; “Literacy and Learning” in coursepack
Presentation Topic: Medieval Dream Books (The Somnium Danielis)
Week 7: Predestination and Foreboding
Reading: Death of Arthur; Dream of Maxen; Dream of Rhonabwy
Presentation Topic: Medieval views on fate and predestination
Week 8: Reform and Social Allegory
Gower, Vox Clamantis; Piers Plowman B passi I-XII; “Politics and Ideology” in coursepack
Presentation Topic: The Peasant’s Revolt
Week 9: Reform and Social Allegory
Piers Plowman B to end; “Religion” in coursepack
Presentation Topic: choose any single episode from PP and present it
Week 10: Crossing Over
The Pearl; Consolation of Philosophy
Presentation Topic: Medieval Consolation as genre
Week 11: Crossing Over
Reading: Chaucer, Book of the Duchess; Machaut, “Fountain of Love” (in appendix); Ovid, “Ceyx and Alcione” (in appendix)
Presentation Topic: Ovid’s story of Ceyx and Alcione; how Chaucer changes it; and why
Week 12: Dreams, Language, and the Self
Reading: Chaucer, Legend of Good Women
Presentation Topic: choose any single tale from LGW and present it
Week 13: Dreams, Language, and the Self
Reading: Petrarch, The Secret; Augustine, Confessions I.4-I.6; I.12-I.18, and “On Christian Doctrine” selection from “Religion” in coursepack
Presentation Topic: Petrarch’s Life and Ambitions
Week 14: Dreams Language, and the Self
Reading: Chaucer: House of Fame
Presentation Topic: The late Middle Ages and the concept of Fame
Week 15: Apocalypses
Reading: De Trinitate; Hildegard von Bingen; Richard Rolle