Gwybodaeth Modiwlau

This module offers an in-depth exploration of late medieval literary culture, emphasizing its inherently intertextual and collaborative nature. Students will encounter medieval dream visions, narratives of magical transformation, and reflections on personal piety, focusing on understanding the broader literary culture of the period. Exploring texts by Chaucer alongside those by his immediate successors, students will engage with the early roots of a proto-fan fiction environment.

The module moves beyond examining individual texts in isolation, encouraging a comparative approach to groups of texts over several sessions. This method highlights the interconnectedness of modes of storytelling and cultural values, both during the Middle Ages and in the 21st century.

By engaging with these medieval texts, students will gain insights into how human nature, societal structures, and cultural values inform and are informed by literary texts.

1) Intertextuality and Collaboration: Understanding how medieval texts were interconnected and often created in a collaborative environment.
2) Dream Visions: Analyzing the symbolic and allegorical nature of medieval dream literature.
3) Magical Transformation: Exploring narratives that involve magical or supernatural changes and their significance.
4) Personal Piety: Reflecting on texts that delve into individual spirituality and religious practices.

[All set texts are avilable in critical online editions that are open access, so there are no cost implications for students in accessing the module texts]
Session 1: Introduction to medieval models of literary production (One 2-hour session)

Section 1: Dreaming of Love (Three 2-hour sessions)
Texts to be discussed include Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (c. 700 lines), Clanvowe's Boke of Cupide (c. 300 lines), and Lydgate's Floure of Curtesye (c. 300 lines)
This section explores the genre of the medieval dream vision via three independent but intertextually related texts that medidate on love.

Section 2: Loathly Ladies and Courtly Society (Three 2-hour sessions)
Texts to be discussed include Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath's Tale' (c. 400 lines), Gower's 'Tale of Florent' (c. 500 lines,) and The Wedding of Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (c. 850 lines).
This section focusses specifically on the popular so-called 'Loathly Lady' stories by exploring how Chaucer, Gower, and an anonymous writer imagine and shape their versions in light of wider social and cultural concerns.

Section 3: Encountering the Divine (Three 2-hour sessions)
Texts to be discussed include selections from The Book of Margery Kempe and the Shewings of Julian of Norwich (up to 3000 lines in total).
This final section explores Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich within the context of late medieval personal and public piety. Building upon the previous sections, the exploration of these two writers, via selections from their texts, combines literary elements with authorial accounts of the divine.