Fiche de cours
Medieval Birds and Dialogic Exchange
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
Public: Oui
Crédits: 0
Contenu
Birds loom large in medieval culture. In this seminar we will first consider the way in which they are perceived in the bestiary tradition, with its strong allegorical tradition. But a close reading of the early Middle English Owl and the Nightingale shows that bird song, and bird life cannot be reduced to a rather rigid and normative appreciation of the avian species. The Owl and the Nightingale, Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, Clanvowe's The Cuckoo and the Nightingale (The Boke of Cupide), as well as several other texts, situate birds in a dialogic setting, and explore the multivocal and open-ended qualities of medieval culture. This seminar will also take into consideration recent issues developed in animal studies that investigate animal and human contacts, as well as cohabitation.
SET TEXTS: The Owl and the Nightingale: Text and Translation, edited by Neil Cartlidge (Exeter: Exeter Medieval English Texts and Studies, 2001); The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry. D. Benson, 3rd edition (Oxford: OUP, 2008); Chaucerian Dream Visions and Complaints, edited by Dama M. Symons, TEAMS (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2004), also available online http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/symons-chaucerian-dream-visions-and-complaints.
