English 240 - Winter, 2017

Medieval Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Vernon, Matthew
CRN: 23108
Time: M 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Earlier British
Focus: Genre, Theory

Description

This course will introduce students to key examples of a robust medieval tradition of visionary literature, approaching it as a mode of speculative thinking that deliberately engages with doubt even as it makes powerful truth claims and that poses questions still relevant in modern and postmodern speculative fictions. We will consider both medieval and modern accounts of the usefulness of such narratives and explore the ways in which medieval speculations spill over into more recent genres like ghost/horror stories, detective fiction, and sci-fi.

Texts

The House Of Fame, Chaucer
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , Gawain-poet
The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
Ready Player One, Ernst Kline
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain
The Faerie Queene, Bk. V, Spenser
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Django: Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis