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MLitt Module

EN51003: Arthurian Literature from Chaucer to Malory and Beyond

Module Organiser: Dr Jo George

This module deals with a highly popular and enduring body of mediaeval literature, the Legends of King Arthur and his Knights. We will trace this material from its beginnings in the twelfth century through to the Victorian Neo-Mediaeval Revival. A study of related visual and fine arts also forms part of the content of this module. Accordingly, you will have the chance to do your module essay on film adaptations of the Arthurian legend if you so desire.

Texts will largely be read in translation though there will be some scope for consulting the mediaeval English material in its original (i.e. Middle English).

Assessment takes the form of one research essay (maximum 5,000 words).

Module Schedule

  1. Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain (Penguin)
  2. Geoffrey of Monmouth again
  3. Wace, Roman de Brut (sometimes called simply Brut)
  4. Layamon’s Brut
  5. READING WEEK
  6. Marie de France: Prologue to the Lais; Lanval; Chaitivel (Xeroxes provided)
  7. The Perilous Graveyard (in Three Arthurian Romances: Poems from Medieval France. This is published by Dent/Everyman) AND Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  8. Wolfram von Eschenbach: Parzifal
  9. King Arthur’s Death: Morte Arthure; Le Morte Arthur(Penguin Classics)
  10. Spenser: The Faerie Queene (Book 1) and A Letter of the Authors in The Norton Anthology, v. i.
  11. The Pre-Raphaelites : William Morris: The Defence of Guenevere; King Arthur’s Tomb; Galahad: a Christmas Mystery. These are available online at  http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/defguin.htm & http://www.lib.rochester.edu/CAMELOT/morrgal.htm

Additional Recommended Primary Reading

Arthurian Romances , by Chretien de Troyes. Translated by William W. Kibley and Carleton W. Carroll (Penguin Classics)


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