Fiche de cours
Medieval literature : Wars and Wonders: from Medieval Chronicle to Romance
Faculté de gestion: Faculté des lettres
Responsable(s): Denis Renevey
Intervenant(s): -
Pas d'horaire défini.
Séminaire
Semestre d'automne
2 heures par semaine
28 heures par semestre
Langue(s) d'enseignement: anglais, français
Public: Oui
Crédits: 0
Contenu
The boundaries between the genres of medieval historiography and medieval romance are permeable. Indeed, it was Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, written in Latin, which was to provide the seeds of much vernacular romance, endowing, as it does, the legendary King Arthur with a full biography, inspiring writers of Arthurian romance and fantasy up to the present day. It also spawned the genre of Brut chronicles, historical writings which told the legendary history of Britain from its foundation by Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas of Troy. In this course we will explore the relationship between history and romance of medieval England by reading some key historiographical texts from period, including extracts from Lawman's Brut and other Brut chronicles, and studying romances, such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Morte d'Arthur. The first classes will consider historical writing as a genre in Medieval England, both before and after the Norman conquest, so looking at texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and works of twelfth-century historians, before engaging more closely with the Middle English texts of the later medieval period.
Bibliographie
A reader will be provided
