English

Arthurian Fiction

An introduction to Arthurian texts, the reading for this course ranges from an early Celtic example to Tennyson, via a French romance and the work of Sir Thomas Malory, the source for most later Arthurian stories in English. Discussion will focus on the motivation, concerns and narratorial features of the individual texts, in comparison with one another, rather than on sources and transmission. We will be most interested in what each text tells us about its culture's attitudes to matters such as love, sexuality, blood lines and power. The premise of the course, which class discussion may test, is that there are no timeless meanings inherent in the Grail, love, brotherhood etc., but that the meanings of these and other motifs depend on the anxieties of differing eras.

Assessment: Three one-hour in-class critical commentaries (30%) and a final essay (70%).
Seminar Leader: Dr Catherine La Farge
Time: Thursday 11-1 Room 302 Tower 1 (Sem I) & Friday 11-1 TB305 Tower 2 (Sem II)
Available: Semester One and Semester Two

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

This course entails on the one hand an intensive reading of a single text, Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, and on the other an examination of the texts that Chaucer's poem alludes to and draws upon. The source material for the poem is extremely rich and varied, and we will find ourselves looking at a misogynistic diatribe by Theophrastus, love letters by Heloise, an anti-matrimonial treatise by St. Jerome, and much more besides. The course will be very much project-based, with a lot of emphasis upon finding things in the library, and writing up the findings for class.

Seminar Leader: Dr Frances McCormack

Old English I: Introduction to Language and Reading

Old English is an exciting and beautiful language. Apart from being an invaluable object of study to those with an interest in etymology, it is the vehicle for some of the most challenging and captivating literature you will ever read. This course will provide you with a thorough introduction to learning to read Old English. As well as learning the language, you will also practise reading and exploring facsimiles of Old English manuscripts. We'll think about many important theoretical issues related to engagement with the language and its texts, and we'll explore the culture of the Anglo-Saxon people. This course will provide you with the opportunity to build on what you have learned by proceeding, if you so choose, to the module 'Old English II: Studies in Poetry and Prose.'

Seminar Leader: Dr Frances McCormack

Old English II: Studies in Poetry and Prose

Please note: this option is only open to those students who have taken Old English 1 or its equivalent. If you have learnt the basics of the Old English language, you will undoubtedly want to take your studies further! Old English is a compelling language, and its texts are both stimulating and fascinating. This course will build on the skills that you have already acquired by allowing you to study the poetry and prose of Old English in detail. Medicinal recipes, riddles, chronicle passages, magic charms and literature: this course offers them all. Find out how to cure Water-Elf disease, accompany Beowulf as he engages in an underwater battle, and try to solve the puzzle of who Wulf and Eadwacer really are!

Seminar Leader: Dr Frances McCormack

William Langland's Piers Plowman

In England in the fourteenth century a man named William Langland, about whom very little is known, wrote an extraordinary, disturbing and ambitious poem. Piers Plowman is a vast, alliterative, allegorical dream-vision, whose subject is nothing less than greed, corruption, the reform of the clergy, virtue, sin, and salvation. This course will comprise an intensive reading of the first seven passus of the poem, which together form a coherent sub-section of the whole. The text will be A.V.C. Schmidt's edition of Piers Plowman, published in a revised form in 1995.

Assessment: Students write weekly short assignments and choose six of these for assessment purposes: each of the six assignments is worth 5% (30% in total). Longer written assignment, due at the end of term: 70%.

Seminar Leader: Dr Cliodhna Carney
Time: Wednesday 12-2 TB302 Tower 2 (Sem I) and Thursday 11-1 Room 306 Tower 1 (Sem II)

Available: Semester One and Semester Two.

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