This course is primarily intended to serve students majoring in British and American Literature; it also addresses, however, concerns of relevance to students interested in historical analysis, the history of ideas, and cultural pluralism and so is appropriate for students meeting their Humanities requirements.

The focus of this course is the literature arising in England between 600 and 1500 CE. This is a problematic enterprise inasmuch as much of that literature has been lost (a process which is recurring today but is largely unrecognized). Nonetheless, from that which remains available to us we can clearly identify issues and ideas that arise during this period and persist, in a variety of forms, to today. Among such issues are the functions of poets in society, the relationship between poets and their predecessors in a tradition, the societal visions in play at different periods over time, and, above all else, the expectations of the individual within those visions.

This semester, our focus will ultimately be on the individual  as variously represented in the works under study. This focus will necessarily embrace the representation of gender roles as well as the differing “ideologies” within which the responsibility of the individual and gender roles are formulated. Underlying this focus will be a concern with the relationships between the “poet” and the larger society and its operations.

Thus this course will examine the content of the poetic works themselves, the context for their telling and the ways in which they reshape materials just as we reframe traditional paradigms today. More importantly, we will penetrate the cultural differences between our own times and those within which these works arose, finding, beneath those differences, a commonality of concerns and responses shared by those writers and our modern society. As that commonality becomes visible, we will then attempt to determine how applicable they may still be may be for individuals in today’s highly mediated society, a society where “poets” still provide us most of what we think we know beyond our personal experience. The student’s understanding of these phenomena is the most valuable and enduring outcome of such a study for anyone confronting the complexities of 21^st century society and its operations.

Course outcomes

At the end of this course, successful students should be able to demonstrate

• A clear understanding of the different functions of the poet in oral cultures, the variety of relationships between the poets’ products and the materials from which they are constructed, and the persistence of such functions and relationships in contemporary literature.

• A substantive understanding of  medieval visions of the individual, the concerns and expectations underlying those different visions, and how those visions are still inherent—and important—in contemporary discussions of the responsibilities, the potentialities, and the limits of the individual

• A greater understanding of the status of women in the period, the powers they have and the factors limiting their power, thus illuminating the gender concepts still operative in contemporary society.

• A more complex understanding of medieval religious beliefs within the social operations of the societies within which they arise, and how those beliefs and operations persist in contemporary society.

• A comprehensive understanding of  the “feudal”  and “chivalric” visions of interpersonal relationships—between leader and follower, between men and women, between friends, among others—and  the ways in which those patterns  still  manifest themselves  today.

• A growth in the ability to understand and evaluate the diversity of opinions about works of medieval literature as articulated in the professional literature.

• A growth in the ability to  express one’s self effectively in both traditional and emerging media, the former represented by traditional essays and the latter by participation in electronic discussions.

Course methodology

This course will approach its subject matter first through the general methodology employed in the history of ideas. Central to this approach is a recognition that all cultures, then and now simultaneously preserve and transform core ideas. The assigned readings will serve as case studies in such a process. Further, this course predicates that an understanding of such processes empowers the student to confront and then make personal decisions in confronting those processes in operation today. Finally, this study will simultaneously affirm the validity of diverse perspectives while providing a means for evaluating their applicability in the decisions we must make in responding to that multiplicity of perspectives offered to us. While the texts and authors considered in this survey may claim to have a “true vision” which supplants or repudiates all others, the validity of such claims will NOT be at issue. Rather, each text/author will be credited with having an internally coherent vision that is shared with others—then and now. Our challenge will be to identify the philosophical, cultural, and social premises which give each vision such power and persistence.

While it is recognized that no one can fully recapture the intent of another from their writings, the act of speculating about such intent is intrinsically worthwhile, as it is an act that we perform (or should be performing) daily in our  responses to all “speech acts” or “mediated information” upon which we depend so extensively in contemporary society. Such speculation about the “intent” of  experienced and articulate poetsr can model possible approaches that can be employed in responding to more mundane (but perhaps more critical) “voices” in our daily life.

Finally, this course stands in the middle of the tradition of humanistic studies as defined by Renaissance apologists and embedded even in the much more “pragmatic” tradition of public higher education in the United States: the content of this course is intended for “the use and benefit of zealous” learners in both their public and private lives, enhancing their abilities of critical analysis and making them better decision makers in both spheres.

Expectations of Students

Learning is something that results from the efforts of a student: your learning—and my assessment of it—will be proportional to the investment of effort you make in addressing the content of the readings, first in (1) confronting the texts themselves and then (2) collaborating with others engaged in similar efforts (including, but not limited to, your instructor’s efforts) , and finally (3) essaying (attempting) to organize and articulate your evolving ideas resulting from those readings and that collaboration.

1. Confronting the texts

It is expected that each student will have “read” the assigned text(s) prior to the class session. There is no expectation that the text will be mastered in that reading; rather, it is assumed that there will be much that appears unclear, incoherent, or incomprehensible. What is expected is that each student will have a general familiarity with the text and, more importantly, will have identified that which is unclear, incoherent, or incomprehensible. Subsequently, after discussions in class and on the conferences, all students are expected to revisit the text under consideration and integrate what has been learned from others involved in the discussion into their own understanding. All such understandings—even those of the instructor—are “works in progress” and it is the “work” where the learning takes place.

2. Collaborating with others

The core of a college education (inherent in the derivation of the word “college”) is collaboration, the primary means of learning at this level and, subsequently, throughout life in one’s public and private lives. Having done the reading as described above, each student is expected to engage in such collaboration through class participation and through the extension of that dialogue by means of the web-based conferences that are an integral part of this course.

In-class participation will take two primary forms: first and foremost, students are expected to raise questions from the outset about what they have just read (1) to clarify things for themselves before the text is examined in more detail, (2) to raise issues that may have been bothering other students but which they could not articulate, and (3) to focus the content of the instructor’s presentation on matters of concern to students. In every case, however, what will be of significance is not the quality of the contribution in and of itself, but rather the effort invested in formulating that contribution.

The second form of collaboration expected of students is manifested in their contributions to the discussions which take place outside of class on the web-based “conferences.”

These conferences are vital for two reasons: (1) they compensate for the structural weaknesses of “commuter campuses” where face-to-face collegiality is too often precluded; and (2) they provide critical experience in the use of electronic communication media which is becoming increasingly prevalent and problematic outside the university. These conferences are an extension of the classroom collaboration where issues are raised and then addressed by all of us for our mutual benefit much as they would be in the classroom: this medium, however, allows each student to contribute to the collaboration without being physically present and at such time as the student is prepared and able to make a coherent contribution. The minimum expectation is that each student will make three distinct contributions to these computer discussions each week. Students who fail to meet those minimal standards may be penalized up to 15% of the raw score awarded for their essays submitted at the end of each grading period. Numbers alone, however, will not be the true measure of effort: that will be more visible in the benefit a student’s questions and observations offer to the rest of the class.

3. Essaying the articulation of your evolving ideas

Over the course of the semester, there will be three opportunities for each student to articulate his or her evolving understanding of the issues addressed in the readings and discussions through written assignments that apply that understanding in specific cases. While there are formal criteria for such written efforts (see the tab “Grading Criteria”) that are analogous to those expected of written products outside the University, the true weight of these “essays” will be placed on the investment made by the individual student in assimilating and then applying and articulating the insights he or she has gained from the readings and discussions in a specific case. Thus the premium is placed not on your ability to “regurgitate” what you heard (or thought you heard) but on your efforts to take what you have heard and use it in a context beyond the course. These assignments will be progressively weighted, allowing students to learn from their prior efforts as their understanding grows over the course of the semester.

The bottom line

Students who do the reading, participate in class and on the conferences, and submit their essays will pass this course. Grades above a “C” will be awarded on the basis of my assessment of each student’s effort and investment over the semester and thus the growth in his/her learning evidenced by that effort. This standard is one that I have used for forty years outside the University in my evaluation of those young professionals working for me, one which has proven to best promote their personal development. I will be happy to discuss this approach in greater detail at your request.