Spring 2023 courses

Dante

FRIT-M501 with Professor Helena Phillips-Robins

Dante’s Divine Comedy is a searching exploration of human existence and of the capacities, and limits, of language and poetry. The poem begins with Inferno – Dante’s exploration of the evil that human beings can do to themselves – and ends with Paradiso – Dante’s exploration, in dialogue with thinkers from Aquinas to Bernard of Clairvaux to Ovid, of what human existence could be, if it was fully shaped by love. This course offers the opportunity for in-depth study of the Comedy, the medieval worlds that produced it, and its later global reception. Students will be encouraged to develop their own research interests within and beyond the Comedy. We will also focus explicitly on different methodological approaches to study of the Middle Ages.

Readings in Drama and Performance; Special Topic: Medieval Performances

ENG-L636 with Professor Shannon Gayk

This course offers an introduction to the genres and modes of performance in late-medieval England with a special focus on drama. We will survey a range of premodern performed works, including liturgy, songs, dance, dialogues and debates, religious imitation and role playing, and biblical cycle plays, morality plays, and mummings. Attending to these different modes and genres, we will both think about the uses of performance in premodern England and consider how early performances challenge later assumptions about what constitutes drama, a play, or theater.

Medieval Iberian Literature and Culture

HISP-S518 with Professor Ryan Giles

Survey of classic literature written on the IBERIAN Peninsula from the early Middle Ages to the end of fifteenth century. The focus will be on major works studied within their historical and cultural contexts, with an emphasis on the most influential literary genres to which they belonged, taking into account trends in literary criticism, as well as issues of gender and intersections with Jewish and Muslim literary traditions. Graduate students in any department with a serious interest in the period and training in Spanish are welcome to register for the course.

The Troubadours

FRIT-F615 with Professor Elizabeth K Hebbard

Troubadour lyric has long been considered foundational to literary culture in the Middle Ages, particularly in its development and elaboration of the influential concept of fin’amors (courtly love), and in the early date of the expansive and virtuosic vernacular poetic community that the tradition represents. This community of troubadours comprised all 12th- and 13th-century poets and composers who wrote songs in Occitan. Unlike for most medieval works, the majority of which are transmitted anonymously, troubadour lyrics circulated with hundreds of names in medieval sources. In this seminar, we will use troubadour lyric as a case study for exploring larger questions around authorship in the medieval period, including authority, attribution, and anonymity. Our approach will encompass a range of related cultural and material considerations, such as the manuscripts themselves (including their author portraits), the Occitan language, the interaction of text and melody, gender, performance, and the construction of literary community and individual identity through song. Our readings and discussions will build this context while students become familiar with key figures of the tradition and read broadly across major and minor lyric genres. Discussion will be in English, and facing page translations will be provided. No prior knowledge of medieval languages is assumed. Students are, however, expected to engage with medieval language traditions relevant to their research area(s).