The Middle Ages

In this course we will read a number of seminal texts from one of the most innovative, multi-dimensional, aesthetically complex, and lasting literary traditions in the European Middle Ages: the literature on love (or, as often, but misleadingly labeled, “courtly love”).  Exploring this rich tradition via different genres, we will read vernacular and Latin lyrics (e.g. Troubadour poetry, German Minnesang and Carmina Burana); vernacular romances (e.g. Lancelot, Erec, and Tristan); and theoretical or more experimental treatises on love (Dante).  In reading and comparing these texts we will
•    engage in literary analysis (form, imagery, recurrent elements, principal ideas, beginnings / ends, construction of a speaker/’I’, performance), and the rhetorics of love;
•    discuss questions of gender and emotionality implied in our texts
•    explore the intersections of love literature and other discourses (medical, theological, legal) and discuss the relationship between our texts and the complex intellectual and social milieus in which they originated;
•    discuss a number of scholarly approaches to the problem.
As no familiarity with medieval literature is required, we will discuss a number of basic aspects of medieval literary culture, among them: concepts of authorship, literary institutions, manuscripts, and the performance of literature. In consequence, the course can also be attended as an introduction into medieval literature.

There will be some lecturing, but most classes will consist of close-readings and discussions of texts read at home. Two papers and minor writing assignments. All texts will be read in translations (and/or bilingual editions) and will be made available in a course reader.