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MA in English: Medieval Literature
Course outlines for 2011-12
The Medieval English Book
Tuesdays 10-12 am
Autumn Term
1.
The copying of Middle English texts
MC
2.
An early-fourteenth century ‘Household’ book: London, British Library,
MS Harley 2253
3.
MC
Secular book-production in the mid-fourteenth century: the ‘Auchinleck’
Manuscript
MC
4.
Manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: CUL Gg.4.27
AB
5.
Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde (Corpus Christi Cambridge MS 61;
BL Harley MS 2392)
AB
6.
Manuscripts of Piers Plowman
AB
7.
Gower manuscripts in the British Library
AB
8.
Manuscripts of Lydgate’s Fall of Princes
MC
9.
Late-Medieval lyric manuscripts
AB
10.
From script to print
MC
Spring Term
1.
Introduction: the copying of Old English texts
SI
2.
Cædmon’s Hymn and its manuscript context
RN
3.
The Vercelli Book, with special reference to The Dream of the Rood
RN
4.
The Old English Boethius: the Bodley prose version and the Junius
transcript
SI
5.
The Old English Boethius: the Cotton manuscript and the use of
digital imaging
SI
2
6.
The Exeter Book
RN
7.
The Beowulf Manuscript
RN
8.
The Cynewulf poems and their manuscript context
RN
9.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: the Parker Chronicle
SI
10.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: the Peterborough Chronicle
SI
Anglo-Saxon Court Culture
Wednesdays 10-12 am
Autumn Term
1.
Gildas, Bede, Wulfstan and the mythology of ruin in Anglo-Saxon
England
MB
2.
Kings, Halls, Emporia, and the early Anglo-Saxon Church
MB
3.
Landscape and Text: Anglo-Saxon London on the Ground
MB
4.
Vikings, Burhs, and the Alfredian Restoration
MB
5.
Literary Landscapes in Late-Saxon England
MB
Spring Term
Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and Anglo-Saxon
royal genealogies
RN
7.
Exodus and myths of royal migration
RN
8.
Scandinavian courts in Beowulf
RN
9.
Beowulf and the royal courts of Mercia
RN
10.
Andreas and ninth-century monastic culture
RN
6.
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English and Englishness: the Politics of the Vernacular
Alternating with A-SCC, Wednesdays 10-12 am
Autumn Term
1.
Imagining the nation: medieval and modern approaches
AB
2.
International cultures: poetry, the visual arts and music
AB
3.
Ricardian writers in the Lancastrian age: Chaucer, Hoccleve
and Walton
MC
4.
Henry V and the promotion of English
MC
5.
Religious writing in English in the fifteenth century:
Lollardy and Nicholas Love
MC
6.
Authorising English: a selection of prologues
AB
7.
Aureate English: Lydgate and Dunbar
MC
8.
English and the gentry: the Paston Letters
MC
9.
Creating the nation: Froissart, Jeanne d’Arc and Henry V
AB
10.
The poetry of war and exile: Charles d’Orléans and others AB
Spring Term
MB: Mike Bintley
AB: Ardis Butterfield
MC: Marilyn Corrie
SI: Susan Irvine
RN: Richard North