Studies in Medieval Literature (324-0-20)
Topic
Queering Medieval Romance
Instructors
Barbara Jane Newman
847/491-5679
University Hall 215
Meeting Info
Parkes Hall 224: Mon, Wed, Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
Overview of class
Medieval romance famously celebrated "courtly love"—the ennobling passion of an aristocratic man for an upper-class woman. But just as deeply ingrained is the ideal of same-sex love between men. And despite—or perhaps because of—the Church's misogynist bias, the culture shows a surprising openness to transgender identities. This class will explore two kinds of texts: those in which women identify as men, and those in which heterosexual love disrupts or is disrupted by male affection. In Ovid's tale of Iphis and Ianthe, two girls (one passing as male) fall in love and marry, while in the life of the transgender saint Marina, a woman who becomes a monk is accused of fathering a child. In Silence, a 13th-century French romance, the "silenced" hero/ine is born female but raised male; as a knight, he is charged with homosexuality after rejecting the queen's advances. After our study of ambiguous gender identities, we'll turn to ambiguous desires, reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Amis and Amiloun, and selections from The Romance of the Rose. We'll end with Chaucer's "other masterpiece," the magnificent Troilus and Criseyde. Set in ancient Troy, this romance features the ambiguous, bisexual Pandarus, who seems to be in love with both the hero and the heroine. Amis and Amiloun and Troilus and Criseyde will be read in Middle English, the other texts in translation.
Class Materials (Required)
Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Love (excerpts) - on Canvas
Ovid, Tale of Iphis and Ianthe (Metamorphoses IX) - on Canvas
Transgender Saints' Lives (SS. Marina, Pelagia, Margaret, and Theodora) - on Canvas
"The Debate between Ganymede and Helen" (trans. John Boswell) - on Canvas
Heldris of Cornwall, Silence (ed. and trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi) - ISBN 0-937191-32-9
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans. Marie Borroff) - ISBN 978-0-393-53246-3
Amis and Amiloun (ed. Edward Foster) - ISBN 1-879288-88-5
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose (trans. Frances Horgan) - ISBN - 9780199540679
Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (ed. Barry Windeatt) - ISBN 978-0-140424-21-8
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area