Medieval and Renaissance Literature

8G:3 Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Humanities)

Our twenty-first century ideas about politics, love, war, and heroism have an incredibly long history, heavily derived from European literature and culture dating back over a thousand years. In this course, we will read texts by Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dante, and lesser-known but influential writers like Margery Kempe, Sir Thomas Malory, and John Bunyan. In the poetry, fiction, and drama of medieval and renaissance Europe, we will encounter an era that resurfaces today in a wide range of cultural forms—from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy literature to the chivalric code celebrated in mainstream romantic comedy.

Specific Course Description and texts used in recent versions of this course

Texts that have been used in recent years for this course. (This is a comprehensive list. During any particular semester, only a few of these texts or similar ones will be used for a specific section of 8G:3)

I. Early Medieval Literature (pre-1066)

• Beowulf: A Dual Language Edition, tr. and commentary Chickering (Doubleday)
• Beowulf, tr. Donaldson (Norton critical edition)
• Song of Roland, tr. Goldin (Norton)
• A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse, tr. Hamer (Faber & Faber)
• Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle Songs, tr. Williamson (U. of Penn. Pr.)
• Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, tr. Green (Macmillian)
• St. Augustine, Confessions (Penguin)
• Nibelungenlied, tr. Hatto (Penguin)
• Poem of the Cid, tr. Hamilton and Perry (Penguin)
• Early Irish Myths and Sagas, tr. Gantz (Penguin)
• Mabinogi & Other Medieval Welsh Tales, tr. Ford (Univ. of California Pr.)
• Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim, tr. Bonfante (Bolchazy-Carducci)
• Anglo-Saxon Poetry, ed. Bradley (Tuttle)
• Anglo-Saxon Prose, ed. Swanton (Tuttle)
  

II. Norman Conquest to the Fourteenth Century (1066-1299)

• Andreas Capellanus, Art of Courtly Love, tr. Parry (Columbia Univ. Pr.)
• Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Writings, tr. Evans (Paulist Pr.)
• Marie de France, Lais of Marie de France, tr. Burgess & Busby (Penguin)
• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, tr. Hatto (Penguin)
• Owl and the Nightingale/ Cleanness/ St. Erkenwald, tr. Stone (Penguin)
• Women Troubadours, ed. and tr. Bogin (Norton)
• Letters of Abelard and Heloise, tr. Radice (Penguin)
• Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, tr. D.D. Owen (Tuttle)
• Njal's Saga, tr. Magnusson and Palsson (Penguin)
• Hadewijch: The Complete Works, tr. Hart (Paulist Pr.)
• Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs, ed. Fox (Bear & Co.)

III. Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century (1300-1499)

• Robert Henryson, Testament of Cresseid & Other Poems (Penguin)
• William Langland, Piers the Ploughman, tr. Goodridge (Penguin)
• Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, tr. Hatto (Penguin)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, tr. Borroff (Norton)
• Pearl, tr. de Ford (Harlan Davidson)
• Malory, Morte D'Arthur, tr. Baines (NAL)
• King Arthur's Death (Morte Arthure and Le Morte Arthur), tr. Stone (Penguin)
• Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ed. and tr. Hieatt and Hieatt (Bantam)
• Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue, ed. Kolve and Olson (Norton) [Middle
  English with marginal glosses]
• Chaucer, Love Visions, tr. Stone (Penguin)
• Mandeville, Travels of Sir John Mandeville, tr. Moseley (Penguin)
• Travels of Marco Polo, tr. Latham (Penguin)
• Dante, Divine Comedy, Vol. 1: Inferno, tr. Musa (Penguin)
• Dante, Divine Comedy: Inferno, tr. Mandelbaum (Bantam)
• Dante, Divine Comedy: Paradiso, tr. Mandelbaum (Bantam)
• Dante's Vita Nuova, tr. Musa (Indiana Univ. Pr.)
• Boccaccio, Decameron, tr. Musa (NAL)
• Kempe, Book of Margery Kempe, tr. Windeatt (Penguin)
• Christine de Pizan, Book of the City of Ladies, tr. Richards (Persea Bks/Norton)
• Julian of Norwich, tr. Colledge and Walsh (Paulist Pr.)
• Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings, tr. Van Engen (Paulist Pr.)
• Rolle, Fire of Love, tr. Wolters (Penguin)

IV. Renaissance Literature (1500-1660)

• Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. Hughes (Macmillan)
• Cervantes, Don Quixote, tr. Cohen (Penguin)
• Cervantes, Don Quixote, tr. Starkie (abridged version) (NAL)
• Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, tr. Cohen (Penguin)
  
• Elizabethan Prose Fiction, ed. Salzman (Oxford Univ. Pr.)
• Machiavelli, Prince, tr. Adams (Norton)
• Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, tr. Radice (Penguin)
• More, Utopia, tr. Adams (Norton)
• Castiglione, Book of the Courtier (Doubleday)
• ­­­ Marguerite de Navarre, Heptameron, tr. Chilton (Penguin)
• Henderson and McManus, Half Humankind: Contexts and Texts of the Controversy about Women in
  England, 1540-1640 (Univ. of Illinois Pr.)

Drama:

• Any of Shakespeare's plays but we particularly suggest Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer Night's
  Dream, Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Winter's Tale, Tempest, Twelfth Night -- all available from NAL.
• But we also recommend that since students get so much Shakespeare in high school and in other 8G
  courses that you balance him with other Renaissance plays, eg.,
  • Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (St. Martin's Pr.),
  • Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, parts I & II (Univ. of Nebraska Pr.),
  • Marlowe's Jew of Malta (Norton),
  • Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (NAL),
  • Heywood's Woman Killed with Kindness (Norton),
  • Jonson's Volpone
    (Harlan Davidson),
  • Jonson's Alchemist (Norton),
  • Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (Norton),
  • Jonson's Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (Norton),
  • Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois (St. Martin's Pr.),
  • Webster's White Devil (Norton),
  • Webster's Duchess of Malfi (Norton),
  • Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle (Norton),
  • Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam (Univ. of California Pr.),
  • Arden of Faversham, ed. White (Norton),
  • Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, ed. Brissenden (Norton).

Anthologies:

• Medieval English Literature, ed. Trapp (Oxford Univ. Pr.).
  A somewhat skimpy anthology, with good illustrations and notes. Includes Beowulf and other Old English
  poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (all in translation), five Canterbury Tales (in Middle English),
  two plays: Second Shepherds' Play and Everyman and some lyrics.
• Literature of Renaissance England, ed. Hollander and Kermode (Oxford Univ. Pr.).
  A superb anthology which contains generous excerpts from Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost, with linking commentary; also many lyrics and some prose selections and the plays Doctor Faustus, Tempest, and Samson Agonistes.
• Paradise of Women: Writings by Englishwomen of the Renaissance, ed. Travitsky (Columbia Univ. Pr.).
  A great anthology with short but provocative (and diverse) selections representing a number of genres,
  styles, topics and experiences of woman writers.
• Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, ed. Petroff (Oxford Univ. Pr.).
  A great edition with lots of excellent historical and cultural context. The title is misleading: Petroff includes
  Christine de Pizan, Margery Kempe, Hadewijch and others -- consequently, this collection spans a number of traditionally construed genres such as lyric, prose narrative, etc.
• Romance of Arthur, 3 vols. [choose one], ed. Wilhelm (Garland Publishing).
  Covering different historical periods, etc. This seems useful and may work well for someone who wants
  to devote some time to a comparative Arthurian section.
• Medieval Women Writers, ed. Wilson (Univ. of Georgia Pr.).
• Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Wilson (Univ. of Georgia Pr.).
• Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante, ed. Gardiner (Italica Pr.).
• Portable Medieval Reader, ed. Ross and McLaughlin (Penguin).
• Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. Abrams, et. al. (Norton).