Proseminar: Middle English Lyrics
Fr. 11.00-13.00
Geb. 23.21 Raum U1.68                                                         Beginn: 19.04.2002
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In this seminar we will translate and discuss a variety of Middle English lyrics dating from the 13th to the 15th centuries with the aim of getting a basic knowledge of medieval shorter poems, their forms, their themes, and methods of their interpretation.

The seminar will be divided into for larger units:

1. Survey and methods
2. Specimens of religious lyrics
3. Specimens of secular lyrics
4. Presentation of selected lyrics in class

This plan enables us to discuss various forms of background information necessary for our understanding of the poems such as: religious and spiritual topics, stereotypes of imagery used in descriptions of beauty or nature, historical facts and figures mentioned in political poems. Moreover, different methods of interpretation will be introduced and discussed.

In the first unit on 19 Apr 2002 we will select the poems to be discussed. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to attend this introductory lesson. The seminar will be closed then. Students who miss this first lesson cannot attend the course.
You can put your name down on the list of participants by contacting
holteir@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de

All texts will be taken from the ‘Blackwell Anthologies’:

Treharne, Elaine (Ed.). Old and Middle English: An Anthology. Oxford 2000.
Pearsall, Derek (Ed.). Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology. Oxford 1999.
(available in the ULB’s Lehrbuchsammlung)

Recommended reading:

Burrow, J. A. Medieval Writers and Their Work. Rev. ed., Oxford 1982. (esp. pp. 56-68).
Ludwig, Hans-Werner. Arbeitsbuch Lyrikanalyse. Tübingen 1994. [Literaturwissenschaft im Grundstudium 3].

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Voraussetzungen: Introduction to English Medieval Studies -
                           Part I: General und Part II: Middle English
Leistungsnachweis: Abschlußprüfung (mündlich), Referat oder Hausarbeit
Veranstaltungstyp: Wahlpflicht M.A./Prom.; SII: B1,2.

Der Inhalt der Lehrveranstaltung ist geeignet für die Zwischenprüfung

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©  Rainer Holtei
last updated
20.09.2009

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