Studies in Medieval Literature

What is the difference between poetry and prose? Do they convey the same kind of knowledge or experience? How is this difference represented on the written page? Such questions fascinated writers during the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. The Middle Ages saw the rise of prose narratives as an alternative to verse romance and lyric, as well as an explosion in vernacular manuscripts, which collected, defined and obsessively categorized literary form. Many genres of prose and poetry came to be identified with new ideas of linguistic, cultural and national identity, especially during the Early Modern period, when the imitiation of Greek and Latin forms allowed writers to establish cultural and intellectual links to the classical past. In this course, we will explore the correspondences among genre, language and the material text by reading a broad range of works in poetry and prose, including lyrics by Dante, Petrarch and Ronsard, Arthurian romance, Don Quixote, crusade chronicles and the travels of Marco Polo.