Kathryn Lynch
Department of English
Founders 111
Office Hours: Mon. 4-5
Tuesday 10-12
ext. 2575, klynch@wellesley.edu
The dream-vision was the medieval equivalent of the modern novel in its popularity as a form. More ubiquitous than any other high literary genre, it was the challenge at which every serious poet was obliged to try his hand. Most of Chaucer's important early poetry was therefore written in this form, as was the poetry of many of the authors against whose skill he tested his own poetic genius, including Jean de Meun, Dante, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and others. Why was this genre so compelling to medieval poets? Did it survive into the Renaissance or later periods, and if so, how had it changed? What value is there in studying the dream-vision today? Does this medieval form that mapped the human mind onto the structure of literary allegory have anything to tell us now about how people think and imagine themselves into the modern world? By looking closely at some of the poetry of Chaucer and his visionary peers and successors, we will address these and other questions, for, as GC would himself have observed, "out of olde feldes, as men seyth, / Cometh al this newe corn from yer to yer, / And out of olde bokes, in good feyth, / Cometh al this newe science that men lere" (Parliament of Fowls 22-25).
Every student is required to keep a reading journal for the course, which she will submit in a portfolio at the end of the semester (Wednesday, May 9). The reading journal will include an entry for at least nine of the twelve weeks of the semester (approximately one typed page per entry) – six of these entries should be made public by the student on the course conference (ENG315-S07, "Eng315-discussion"); the first entry each student posts, I will print out and critique, so that she will have a sense of what I'm looking for in these and how well hers fulfills the goals of the assignment (though “entries” will not be individually graded). When you post "an entry," please distinguish it from other postings, by titling it "Journal Entry," so that I (and the other students) know that this is your slightly more formal and worked out piece of writing for the week. My hope is that issues the journal postings raise will both help us focus our class discussion and will also provide fodder for the final papers. Journal entries for each week's readings should be posted by noon Sunday, giving me (and the other students) time to read through them before the next day's class. There is no set form that the journal entries should follow, and they may include personal, non-academic reactions to the reading, but they should engage the reading with some specificity and look for links between readings. I also encourage students to include comment on the background readings on the journal entries. In addition, each student will prepare an annotated bibliography on a specific text (directions distributed separately), which she will present in both oral and written form. The major work for the semester will be a seminar paper, of approximately 15-20 pages. This paper can concern any topic covered in the course; though some students will likely choose to work on the topic of their annotated bibliographies, this is not required. The seminar paper will come due in two stages – first as a two-page proposal, due on April 2, and finally as a final paper, due on Friday, May 11. I welcome, though do not require, partial drafts or outlines of this paper. The weighting of these assignments will be approximately as follows: reading journal 20%; annotated bibliography 20%; seminar paper proposal 10%; final paper 40%; general class participation 10%.
Dream Visions and Other Poems, by Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Kathryn Lynch (W.W. Norton; abbreviated below as NCE)
The Kingis Quair and Other Prison Poems, ed. Linne Mooney and Mary-Jo Arn (Medieval Institute; also available online at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm#k)
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ed. Harold Brooks (Arden)
Pearl, an Edition, with Verse Translation, ed. William Vantuono (Notre Dame)
Of the readings listed below, only the primary text is required of everyone. Each week, I’d like you to pick one of the backgrounds, if such are listed, to read and be responsible for in class discussion – you are not expected to complete all of the background reading. For a vivid sense of the immediacy of all these “background” texts to Chaucer, please see Ruth Evans’ visionary fantasy on the topic in NCE 229-31.
Monday, January 29: Introductory – organization of the course; the shorter poems, e.g., "To Rosemounde"
Monday, Februrary 5: Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess (NCE 3-37); backgrounds: Ovid, Metamorphoses [story of Ceyx and Alcyone] (NCE 251-57); Boethius, selections from the Consolation of Philosophy (NCE 268-72); Jean de Meun, from the Romance of the Rose [description of Fortune] (NCE 280-81); selections from Guillaume de Machaut, The Fountain of Love (NCE, see the last two paragraphs on p. 289 through paragraph 4 on p. 291)
Monday, Februray 12: Pearl (Anonymous, ed. Vantuono)
Monday, February 26: Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls; backgrounds: Boccacio, selection from Il Teseide (NCE 258-64), Dante, from the Inferno (NCE 282-83); Cicero, from The Dream of Scipio (NCE 299-303); Alain de Lille, selection from the Complaint of Nature (NCE 273-74)
Monday, March 5: The House of Fame (Books I and II, NCE 39-68); selection from Book I of Virgil’s Aeneid, distributed in photocopy; Macrobius, selection from the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio (NCE 265-68); visit from James Simpson of Harvard University
Monday, March 12: The House of Fame (finish poem, NCE 69-92); backgrounds: selection from Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso (NCE 283-84); Ovid, Metamorphoses [house of Fame or Rumor] (NCE 257-58); Virgil, Aeneid [description of Fame] (NCE 235, lines 174-202)
SPRING BREAK
Monday, March 26: The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (NCE 117-37); backgrounds: selections from Guillaume de Lorris, the Romance of the Rose (NCE 275-80)
Monday, April 2: the Legend of Good Women, part one (Cleopatra, Thisbe, Lucrece, Ariadne); paper proposal due today
Monday, April 9: Excursus: “Anelida and Arcite” (NCE 191-205); also required, Richard Firth Green, “Chaucer’s Victimized Women” (NCE 338-52) and Elaine Tuttle Hansen, “The Feminization of Men in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women” (NCE 352-65)
Monday, April 17 (Tuesday): the Legend of Good Women, part two (Dido, Hypsipyle and Medea); backgrounds: Virgil, from Aeneid IV (NCE 231-44); Ovid, from the Heroides (NCE 245-51)
Monday, April 23: the Legend of Good Women, part three (Philomena, Phyllis, Hypermnestra)
Monday, April 30: James I of Scotland, The Kingis Quair (ed. Mooney & Arn)
Wednesday, May 2: Ruhlman Conference
Monday, May 7: William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (ed. Brooks)
Friday, May 11: Final paper due
