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) and the immediate context for such works is indeterminate. 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.

 Course outcomes

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

• A clearer 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  more 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 more 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 poets can model possible approaches that can be employed in responding to more mundane (but perhaps more critical) “voices” in our daily life.

 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 seminar 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, more extensively, through the extension of that dialogue by means of the web-based conferences that are an integral part of this course.

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..

Subsequent to our group consideration of a particular text, that collaboration is to be continued as the implications of what was discussed in class are explored on the conferences.

Finally, those conferences will facilitate a collaborative approach to the execution of the written tasks that will be set as a formal measure of the extent to which each student has met the intended course outcomes.

3. Essaying the articulation of your evolving ideas

Over the course of the semester, there will be two 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. In evaluating a student’s written work, significant weight 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..

 The bottom line

Students who do the reading, participate in class and on the conferences, and submit their essays will pass this course.  Grades 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.