Week 1: Introduction: Nature, Gender, and the Self in the Middle Ages
Readings: Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Chap. 6, "the Goddess Natura," pp. 106-27
Martin Stevens, "The Performing Self in Twelfth Century Culture"
Readings:
Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules
Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, Book 1, Chapters 2-5
Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption; On the Generation of Animals, Excerpts
Jan. 24 Fri. @ 4: Required Guest Lecture: Professor Geraldine
Heng, English Department, University of Texas-Austin, "Cannibalism, the First Crusade, and the Genesis of Arthurian Romance," Kyle Morrow Room
Readings:
Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. 4
Ovid, Heroides, Letter of Dido to Aeneas
Week 4: Twelfth Century Culture: The Advent of
Subjectivity, (Homo)Sexuality, and the Self
Readings:
John Benton, "Consciousness of Self and Perceptions of Individuality,"
Culture, Power, and Personality in Medieval France (Hambledon Press, 1991), pp. 327-56.
John Boswell, "The Triumph of Ganymede: Gay Literature of the High Middle
Ages"
Gerald Bond, The Loving Subject, Chaps. 1-2
Week 5: Alain de Lille, De planctu Naturae
Reading:
Alain de Lille, De planctu Naturae
Elizabeth Grosz, "Refiguring Bodies" and "Sexed Bodies"
Feb. 13, Thurs., @ 5: Required Guest Lecture, Terry Castle, English Dept., Stanford University, "Lesbianism and the Aesthetic: The Case of Mademoiselle de Maupin"
Week 6: Alain de Lille, Anticlaudianus
Readings:
Alain de Lille, Anticlaudianus
Aristotle, On the Soul, Excerpts
James Simpson, Sciences and the Self in Medieval Poetry,, chaps. 1-4
Week 7: Guillaume de Lorris, Roman de la Rose
Readings:
Guillaume de Lorris, Roman de la Rose
Emmanuele Baumgartner, "The Play of Temporalities; or, The Reported Dream of Guillaume de Lorris" in Huot and Brownlee, Rethinking the "Romance",
pp. 21-38
Karl Uitti, "'Cele [qui] doit estre Rose clamee' (Rose, vv. 40-44): Guillaume's Intentionality," in Huot and Brownlee, pp. 39-64
Week 8: Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose
Readings:
Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose
Thomas D. Hill, "Narcissus, Pygmalion, and the Castration of Saturn"
David F. Hult, "Language and Dismemberment:
Abelard, Origen, and the Romance of the Rose,' in Huot
and Brownlee, pp.101-130
Week 9: Heldris de Cornauille, Silence
Readings:
Heldris de Cornauille, Silence
Peter Allen, "The Ambiguity of Silence: Gender, Silence, and Le Roman de Silence"
Terry Castle, "The Apparitional Lesbian"
Week 10: John Gower, Confessio Amantis
Readings:
John Gower, Prologue and Book 1
James Simpson, Sciences and the Self in
Medieval Poetry, chap. 5, "Ovidian Disunity in Gower's Confessio Amantis," pp. 134-66
Week 11: John Gower, Confessio Amantis
Readings:
John Gower, Books 2-8
James Simpson, Sciences and the Self,
chaps. 6-9, pp. 167-299
Week 12: Christine de Pizan Lavision-Christine
Readings:
Christine de Pizan Lavision-Christine
Kevin Brownlee, "Discourses of the Self: Christine
de Pizan and the Romance of the Rose," in Huot and Brownlee, pp. 234-261
Sylvia Huot, "Seduction and Sublimation: Christine de Pizan, Jean de Meun, and Dante"
Weeks 13 and 14: Seminar Papers
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