ENGL 312 - Gender, Love, and Marriage in the Middle Ages

FDR: HL
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall 2014 and alternate years

Prerequisites: ENGL 299. A study of the complex nexus of gender, love, and marriage in medieval legal, theological, political, and cultural discourses. Reading an eclectic range of texts–such as romance, hagiography, fabliau, (auto)biography, conduct literature, and drama–we consider questions of desire, masculinity, femininity, and agency, as well as the production and maintenance of gender roles and of emotional bonds within medieval conjugality. Authors include Chaucer, Chretien de Troyes, Heldris of Cornwall, Andreas Cappellanus, Margery Kempe, and Christine de Pisan. Readings in Middle English or in translation. No prior knowledge of medieval languages necessary. Kao.