Updated: Nov. 26, 2009
Week 1 Aug. 24-28
Mon. Introduction to the course
Wed. Beowulf site: the Map, Sutton Hoo, History and Religion
Web sites that may be of interest:
The Anglo-Saxon period objectives
After reading Beowulf and discussing the following topics, students will be able to make connections between the Anglo-Saxons and twentieth century Americans. In the mid-term exam students will answer some of these questions.
1 What is the Anglo-Saxon attitude toward wealth, treasure, money?
2 What is the purpose of fighting?
3 What is the attitude toward women?
4 How do Anglo-Saxons see themselves in relationship to the universe? Do they seem to feel that they are favored by the gods or do they feel a malign or negative response from their gods? Do they have a comfortable vision of an afterlife?
5 What is the purpose of the stories of tribal feuding?
6 What are the characteristics of a good ruler? A bad?
Fri. Read Beowulf, pp. 31-41
Prologue: The Rise of the Danish Nation
Heorot is Attacked
The Hero Comes to Heorot
Week 2 Aug. 31-Sept. 4
Mon. Response paper # 1 answering the first three questions above is due Your response should include quotations and events from today's reading, 41-58.
Read Beowulf, pp. 41-58
Feast at Heorot
The Fight with Grendel
Celebration at Heorot
Wed. Read Beowulf, pp. 58-69
Another Attack
Beowulf Fights Grendel's Mother (skim this book)
Another Celebration at Heorot
Week 3 Sept. 7-11
Mon. Labor Day
Wed. Read Beowulf, pp.77- 97 (skip Beowulf Returns Home)
Response paper # 2 answering questions 4, 5, and 6, above is due. You may only use quotations from the last half of the epic.
The Dragon Wakes
Beowulf Attacks the Dragon
Beowulf's Funeral
Fri. On Chaucer's site. The Middle Ages: the social order, art, cathedrals, and music.
Medieval period objectives
Primary learning objective: To show how the medieval (Middle Ages) period affects the West in the twentieth century.
Individual learning objectives. In the mid-term exam students will answer some of these questions.
1 Understand the difference between the Ptolemaic (earth-centered) vision of the universe and the Copernican (heliocentric) and how the difference between the two affects humankind's faith in God.
What is the state of Christian faith today?
2 Understand the hierarchical vision of life; cosmic, social (feudal), individual (the relationship of the soul and the body).
To what extent does this ancient concept affect us today? Do we believe in the separation of soul and body?
3 Understand St. Augustine's influence on literature.
Does his influence persist in the twentieth century?
4 Understand courtly love.
To what extent has courtly love shaped our expectations of love?
This week, please be reading ahead for the coming assignments on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
Week 4 Sept. 14-18
Mon. Medieval Ideas. Introduction to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales:
"The General Prologue."
Important notice: your textbook is incomplete; you need to use a modern English translation which you
may buy in paper book or find on the Internet.
Film of Canterbury Cathedral
Relevant web sites:
The Labyrinth: a search engine for medieval materials
Wed. "The Pardoner's Tale" (film: RS/1905/C37/1988vid)
Fri. "The Miller's Tale"
Week 5 Sept. 21-25
Mon. "The Nun's Priest's Tale;" "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"
Wed. "The Merchant's Tale;" "The Franklin's Tale" and "The Clerk's Tale" Response paper # 3: Analyze what Chaucer is saying about marriage in these last three tales. Which of the marriages is the best and why?
Fri. Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, p. 112
Part 1
History and Religion on the Sir Gawain site.
Week 6 Sept. 28-Oct. 2
Mon. Read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, pp. 124-137
Part 2
Wed. SGGK, pp. 137-165
Part 3
Cathedral films and discussion
Fri. Continue Part 3
Response paper # 4: Why does Gawain keep the green girtle and not pass it on to his host as agreed between them? Should he have kept the green girtle or given it to the host and gone willingly to meet his death at the Green Knight's hands? What does the court learn from this adventure when Gawain goes back and reports on his "failings"?
Week 7 Oct. 5-9
Mon. Handout on Balin from Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur
Wed. Read the excerpts in the textbook on Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, pp. 299-314
Web sites:
Labyrinth: a search engine for medieval material
Fri. Introduction to Shakespeare and the Renaissance
Week 8 Oct. 12-16
Mon. Essay # 1due: TBA
Introduction to Shakespeare and the Renaissance
Wed. Mid-Term Exam
Fri. Henry IV, Part 1, Act 1
Week 9 Oct. 19-23
Mon. Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2
Response paper # 5: How do Falstaff's adventures
mirror the main plot?
Wed. Henry IV, Part 1, Act. 3
Fri. Henry IV, Part 1, Act. 4
Week 10 Oct. 26-30
Mon. Henry IV, Part 1, Act 5
Wed. Discussion of the play
Fri. John Donne: read "The Sun Rising"; "The Flea"; "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"; "The Relic"
Week 11 Nov. 2-6
Mon. From Donne's Holy Sonnets, read 5 " I am a little world made cunningly"; 14, "Batter my heart, three-personed God; "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee"
Andrew Marvell: "To His Coy Mistress"
Wed. John Milton, Paradise Lost, p. 723
Introduction
Fri. Book 1 (but skip lines 375-570)
Week 12 Nov. 9-13
Mon. Book II
Response paper # 6: Write a response paper analyzing how Milton presents Satan and how he presents God. Milton has been accused of making Satan too interesting. If this is true, what's wrong with his depiction of God?
Wed. Book III
Fri. Book IV (No class)
Week 13 Nov. 16-20
Mon. Book IV continued
Wed. Book IX
Fri. Book IX continued
Week 14 Nov. 23-27 Thanksgiving
Mon. Essay # 1 due. Topics:
1) Describe John Milton’s sexism in regard to Eve. In other words, discuss his portrayal of Eve as consistently inferior to Adam.
2) Follow the devolution (descent through a series of changes) of Satan's character, both physically and emotionally. Explain why Milton portrays Satan as an heroic figure in the beginning and a serpent in the end. What point is he trying to get across to the reader?
3) Discuss Milton’s concept of good and evil; how does he present this
dramatically in the epic?
Week 15 Nov. 30-Dec. 4
Mon. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part 4. A Voyage to the Country to the Houyhnhnms
Wed. continued
Response paper # 7:
Week 16 Dec.7-11 Exam Week
Take-home exam due Wed. at 11 a. m. sharp.
Last year's exam: Choose 3 of the following topics and write what would amount to a response paper for each, at least a page long for each. Be sure you support your argument with textual evidence (quotations):
1. Explicate the seduction, its strengths and weakness, as an argument in John Donne’s “The Flea” and "To His Coy Mistress."
2. Compare and contrast Hal and Hotspur in Henry IV, Part 1. How do they develop the central meaning of the play?
3. Discuss the ways that Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels criticizes human beings through the conversations between Gulliver and the head Houyhnhnm.
4. Argue that Satan is both an epic and a tragic character. (You may want to look at a source to get a definition of epic, or you may want to come up with your own definition based on the epic hero of Beowulf.)