[EloiseStar]

I'm interested to see what modules people enjoyed the most when studying English... Please say where you study/studied at!

Thank you!

[Shelly_x]

So far, 19th Century and Creative Writing.

[hobnob]

Hmm, overall I'd say I probably enjoyed the medieval papers most.

[QHF]

I did my BA at Queen Mary.

I enjoyed the dissertation a great deal because putting it together over the course of a whole year, with supervision, was quite fun. (It was also hard and intensely annoying.)

Like hobnob, I enjoyed the medieval modules I took. I liked the strange mix of familiarity and oddness in medieval literature, and its tendency to make one worry productively about basic questions in places other periods don't seem to reach.

When I was at Queen Mary they offered a two-term third-year module on 'the Bible as/and literature', which was really, really good fun because it stretched across a massive period of time & pulled in lots of stuff from textual criticism, book history and various theories about intertextuality. I think the Bible (in various translations) is really a a bit of an elephant in the room for a lot of literary criticism: I'm pretty sure it's the book (or anthology, or miscellany) which has exercised the most influence on writing in English pretty much since people have been writing in English.

[hobnob]

(Original post by QHF)
I liked the strange mix of familiarity and oddness in medieval literature, and its tendency to make one worry productively about basic questions in places other periods don't seem to reach.

Though I suppose in a way the same is true for other periods as well, it's just that it's never quite so pronounced - and quite so tangible - as with medieval texts.

[EloiseStar]

(Original post by Shelly_x)
So far, 19th Century and Creative Writing.

What exactly do you get to look at for creative writing? I'm interested in going into screenwriting and wondering if it would be at all beneficial

[Shelly_x]

(Original post by EloiseStar)
What exactly do you get to look at for creative writing? I'm interested in going into screenwriting and wondering if it would be at all beneficial

We looked at fiction, non-fiction, poetry and screenwriting. They describe it as 'writing from a readers perspective' so you get inspiration from things you have read/seen ect.
We looked at how other writers have explored the genre and examples of techniques ect.

[Aeschylus]

Medieval - noticing a pattern here

Especially Old Irish literature. Tain Bo Cuailgne. What a story.

[EloiseStar]

(Original post by hobnob)
Hmm, overall I'd say I probably enjoyed the medieval papers most.

(Original post by QHF)
Like hobnob, I enjoyed the medieval modules I took. I liked the strange mix of familiarity and oddness in medieval literature, and its tendency to make one worry productively about basic questions in places other periods don't seem to reach.

(Original post by SilGathien)
I'm a Cardiff student, and like some of the other posters, I'm also a sucker for medieval modules.

(Original post by Aeschylus)
Medieval - noticing a pattern here

Especially Old Irish literature. Tain Bo Cuailgne. What a story.

I'm curious now! It sounds interesting- what else can you tell me about Medieval literature?

[Aeschylus]

(Original post by EloiseStar)
I'm curious now! It sounds interesting- what else can you tell me about Medieval literature?

Firstly throw out all preconceptions you have about medieval. 'Middle Ages' was a term people in Renaissance Italy used to big themselves up (I know it's more complicated than that) and 'Medieval' stems mainly from Buckhardt, a 19th century historian, who thought the Renaisance was the best thing ever and the Middle Ages was an intellectually inferior time, when of course it was nothing of the sort.

Then also bear in mind that what People term as Medieval (650-1550 roughly, earlier if you include Gildas) spans 900 years, roughly the time from Homer to the emperor Hadrian. That is a huge period of time and if you see how much cultural vagaries have changed in the last century, imagine what they have done over 900 years.

Then remember a lot of the stuff is not written in English because English wasn't the dominant language in England for a period of rougly 300 years (1066-age of Chaucer). This means a lot of interesting stuff in French, Anglo-Norman, Latin and some early Middle English has been ignored to focus on Chaucer who is one of the first easily identifiable authors (writing my master's dissertation about this next year). There's also lots of literature in Wales, Ireland and Old Norse/Iceland as well that affects English literature in many ways - the beheading in Sir Gawain stems from an Irish myth while many of the words of the alliterative north tongue (very different to Chaucer's courtly London dialect) are Old Norse in origin.

So as a timeline you have:
Anglo Saxon (650-1000 roughly): lots of religious literature that survives, Beowulf is the main thing but you have lots of religious rewritings of the Bible and different literature such as the Wanderer or Seafarer that have inspired modernists - see Pound's translation of the latter. There are two good books which have most of Anglo-Saxon stuff 'Anglo Saxon Poetry' by Bradly and 'the Anglo-Saxon World' by Kevin Crossley Holland (who also did a great children's trilogy about King Arthur but I digress)

Early Middle English - Owl and the Nightingale, Layamon's Brut but also you have Anglo-Norman and Latin texts, lots of medieval lyrics, lots of historiography where the 'Matter of Britain' - who deserves the Island, the Normans, Saxons or Britons - where Arthur is invented (first seen in the History of the Kings of Britain) and used as a political tool. History here is often literature and often has a political purpose - Henry of Huntingdon, gerald of Wales, William of Malmesbury etc. You have lots of crazy religious literature - Ancrene Wisse springs to mind the most. Also you have romances starting such as King Horn. Welsh and Irish epics like the Mabinogion and the Tain Bo Cuailnge are codified in manuscripts definitively at this point. Some of this stuff is easily available, some not so much

Late Middle English:

You have an explosion of religious literature in english - such as Wycliff's sermons. The Main authors at this point are Chaucer, Langland and Gower - Chaucer alone and all his works could keep you occpuied. He's a fantastic writer, full of irony, and fun to read in the Middle English or translation. You have lots of romances written at this point which are kind of 'pulp fictions', the Mills and Boon of their time and are tremendously enjoyable. You have literature like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl which you 'll probably have to read in translation but are enjoyable.

Then after Chaucer there's his imitators, Hoccleve and Lydgate. They're a bit dull if I'm honest but there are some good bits but they're hard to find in print. Then you have the Scottish Chaucerians, again hard to find and Skelton and Surrey finish the period off. A lot of this stuff is hard to find in print

That's not even to mention Medieval French and Italian literature which had massive influences on Chaucer and his contemporaries and earlier, and there is some fantastic stuff as well

As a starter offer I'd buy
Chaucer, the Canterbury Tales (in translation) and if you like it buy the Riverside Chaucer and go the whole hog.
The Anglo-saxon world By Crossley Holland/Anglo-Saxon poetry by Bradley
Gawain and the Green Knight (there's a few good translations but I like Tolkein's strnagely enough)

Those are the key ones. If you like them then try branching out further. Most people have had no experience of Medieval pre-Uni - I was terrified of the stuff - but York is brilliant, utterly brilliant for Medieval stuff and their teaching was top notch (just my experience) If you want any more info, quote me or PM.

EDIT: Forgot La (further edit: Le) Morte D'arthur. Brilliant and very accessible. Get the Oxford World's Classics edition (Wincheser Manuscript) if you can.

[hobnob]

(Original post by Aeschylus)
EDIT: Forgot La Morte D'arthur. Brilliant and very accessible. Get the Oxford World's Classics edition (Wincheser Manuscript) if you can.

Le Morte D'Arthur.

(Original post by SilGathien)
^ Great post, Aeschylus.

Considering that medieval literature is not that popular with students (I know, I know), I'm surprised there are so many enthusiasts in one post!

This is where the geeky people congregate, though.

I enjoyed studying medieval literature because it was much more varied and fun than I had expected. It kind of forces you to throw out all your preconceptions about things like genre and narrative and to focus on what you're actually looking at, which will often be distinctly weird, but very interesting in ways that you don't expect. Overall, I'd say medieval literature was probably what surprised me most.
My personal favourite was Mandeville's Travels (which is a great read), but I also developed an interest in medieval drama - which is fascinating because again, it contradicts everything you think you know about how drama works.

[hobnob]

(Original post by SilGathien)
Oh, absolutely . And I also like to think of the word geeky as synonymous with cool .

P.S. I raise your correction of Le Morte D'arthur to Le Morte Darthur. Darn that nineteenth-century spelling!

Oops, you're right. Did I mention I didn't actually end up specialising in medieval literature? Perhaps I should have (mentioned it, that is).

[QHF]

(Original post by Aeschylus)
Hoccleve and Lydgate [. . .] dull

Now, now. I heard a gripping paper on Hoccleve last night and... I'm, er, sure that Lydgate has his virtues. Um.

Aeschylus makes a good point about the sheer length of time we're dealing with. At the first lecture I went to as an undergrad, the lecturer pointed out that while Chaucer has often been used as the 'father' of English literature, he's chronologically just slightly after the midpoint of the history of literature written in English (or in England).

(Original post by hobnob)
Le Morte D'Arthur.

Le Morte Darthur!

(Original post by hobnob)
It kind of forces you to throw out all your preconceptions about things like genre and narrative and to focus on what you're actually looking at, which will often be distinctly weird, but very interesting in ways that you don't expect.

This is sort of what I was aiming at in my first post, possibly. It was only when I was made to read medieval literature that I noticed how much of English studies is dominated by two things: the shorter lyric poem (especially the Romantic poem) and the novel (especially the nineteenth-century novel). Of course these are both really important things which deserve study, but I think they tend to control our approach to other material too, so we wind up reading, say, Shakespeare with an essentially novelistic interest in character and narrative, or going into Donne or Milton expecting the same mechanics and purposes we've observed in the Romantics.

Now, that can be a perfectly legitimate way to proceed, but I think you need to think through why you're choosing that way and not any other option. And medieval writing is very good at pointing out the other options and expanding the way you enjoy reading. I remember reading the Song of Roland when I was a first year, enjoying it immensely, and then stopping and realising that the overall narrative held little interest for me, the characters were ciphers and the poem's thought-world was in modern terms bigoted. So why was it such fun, and why did I think it was good? The other, less arcane and less marginal bits of English studies aren't as good at forcing you to confront this sort of question, though I think if you work hard enough you can still get through to the same issues.

Also -- and this is a very personal view -- because it's pretty premodern, a lot of medieval writing offers all the fun of postmodern thinking with a lot less of the crap. I think this is clearest when you tackle material transmission: finding ways to deal with and argue about the fact that your text survives in, say, three differently-produced manuscripts, in different versions, from different dates, is just much more enjoyable than raiding volumes of badly-translated French theory for quotable sentences about text's instability which everyone pretends to understand because admitting that you're too thick for Theory in the middle of a seminar is kind of embarrassing. (I'm not bitter at all, not I.)

[Aeschylus]

(Original post by QHF)
Now, now. I heard a gripping paper on Hoccleve last night and... I'm, er, sure that Lydgate has his virtues. Um.

Aeschylus makes a good point about the sheer length of time we're dealing with. At the first lecture I went to as an undergrad, the lecturer pointed out that while Chaucer has often been used as the 'father' of English literature, he's chronologically just slightly after the midpoint of the history of literature written in English (or in England).


Le Morte Darthur!


This is sort of what I was aiming at in my first post, possibly. It was only when I was made to read medieval literature that I noticed how much of English studies is dominated by two things: the shorter lyric poem (especially the Romantic poem) and the novel (especially the nineteenth-century novel). Of course these are both really important things which deserve study, but I think they tend to control our approach to other material too, so we wind up reading, say, Shakespeare with an essentially novelistic interest in character and narrative, or going into Donne or Milton expecting the same mechanics and purposes we've observed in the Romantics.

Now, that can be a perfectly legitimate way to proceed, but I think you need to think through why you're choosing that way and not any other option. And medieval writing is very good at pointing out the other options and expanding the way you enjoy reading. I remember reading the Song of Roland when I was a first year, enjoying it immensely, and then stopping and realising that the overall narrative held little interest for me, the characters were ciphers and the poem's thought-world was in modern terms bigoted. So why was it such fun, and why did I think it was good? The other, less arcane and less marginal bits of English studies aren't as good at forcing you to confront this sort of question, though I think if you work hard enough you can still get through to the same issues.

Also -- and this is a very personal view -- because it's pretty premodern, a lot of medieval writing offers all the fun of postmodern thinking with a lot less of the crap. I think this is clearest when you tackle material transmission: finding ways to deal with and argue about the fact that your text survives in, say, three differently-produced manuscripts, in different versions, from different dates, is just much more enjoyable than raiding volumes of badly-translated French theory for quotable sentences about text's instability which everyone pretends to understand because admitting that you're too thick for Theory in the middle of a seminar is kind of embarrassing. (I'm not bitter at all, not I.)

I love you.

( I might be picking your brains on PHD applications and general postgrad medieval awesomeness later, that OK? and btw I agree Hoccleve is better than Lydgate, if not by much )

[hobnob]

(Original post by QHF)
Le Morte Darthur!

I already get-me-coat-ed for that in my last post - I'm not going to do it again!

This is sort of what I was aiming at in my first post, possibly. It was only when I was made to read medieval literature that I noticed how much of English studies is dominated by two things: the shorter lyric poem (especially the Romantic poem) and the novel (especially the nineteenth-century novel). Of course these are both really important things which deserve study, but I think they tend to control our approach to other material too, so we wind up reading, say, Shakespeare with an essentially novelistic interest in character and narrative, or going into Donne or Milton expecting the same mechanics and purposes we've observed in the Romantics.

Now, that can be a perfectly legitimate way to proceed, but I think you need to think through why you're choosing that way and not any other option. And medieval writing is very good at pointing out the other options and expanding the way you enjoy reading. I remember reading the Song of Roland when I was a first year, enjoying it immensely, and then stopping and realising that the overall narrative held little interest for me, the characters were ciphers and the poem's thought-world was in modern terms bigoted. So why was it such fun, and why did I think it was good? The other, less arcane and less marginal bits of English studies aren't as good at forcing you to confront this sort of question, though I think if you work hard enough you can still get through to the same issues.

Hmm, I'm not sure if the notion of 'character' is really novel-based. I'd say that one may actually owe more to eighteenth-century acting theory.
Other than that, though: to all of that.
In a way I've come across similar kind of things for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, though, i.e. certain views about early modern texts or authors than kind of get taken for granted, but when you unpick them they're actually based on preconceptions about genre or authorship that don't always hold up to scrutiny.

[LostHorizons]

This is a very interesting thread. Making me look even more forward to studying medieval stuff

(Original post by Aeschylus)
Welsh and Irish epics like the Mabinogion and the Tain Bo Cuailnge are codified in manuscripts definitively at this point

What does that mean, exactly?

[hobnob]

(Original post by LostHorizons)
What does that mean, exactly?

'Written down'?

[QHF]

(Original post by Aeschylus)
( I might be picking your brains on PHD applications and general postgrad medieval awesomeness later, that OK?

Sure, send a PM any time, though all I can provide is information from my own limited perspective.

[Aeschylus]

(Original post by LostHorizons)
This is a very interesting thread. Making me look even more forward to studying medieval stuff



What does that mean, exactly?

(Original post by hobnob)
'Written down'?

sorry sloppy on my part. Yes, kind of. What I meant was that the Mabinogion and Tain are thought to initiate from oral epic - there are elements of oral telling in both. The Tain is known through bibliographic records to have been written at some point in an 8th century manuscript but that no longer survives. it does however survive in two (quite ) different manuscripts, which were written at this point. So yes written down (Hobnob ) but also turned gradually from an oral form of story telling into a literary one that retains oral roots. I hope that makes better sense

[LostHorizons]

Ahh, that makes more sense That also reminded me that I didn't know quite what codex meant, which has just led to a fun 15 minutes on Wikipedia, yay.