UCD School of English, Drama & Film

Scoil an Bhéarla, na Drámaíochta agus na Scannánaíochta UCD

MA in Medieval Literature and Culture

Course Description

The MA in Medieval Literature and Culture is intended for those who enjoyed medieval literature and want to extend their knowledge of it beyond their undergraduate degree. It is suitable for those intending to pursue an academic career, but also will appeal to anyone returning to education whether for professional purposes or for the pure pleasure of learning more about the medieval period. It also offers options in the Renaissance period. The course provides a foundation in research skills as well as an opportunity to study subjects from a wide range of options. Designed around small-group sessions in which students work with a member of staff who is a specialist in his or her field, students will be equipped to develop and shape their particular areas of interest and research skills to produce a dissertation. Topics on offer as part of the course include the history of handwriting and book production, the relationship between history and literature, the cultural location of writing, whether it be supportive or subversive of dominant ideologies of writing, the formation of a literary canon, and the whole issue of writing in the vernacular. We examine a wide spectrum of genres from across the greater medieval period such as the epic, heroic, romantic, religious, historic, beast fable and hagiographic. The student can expect to emerge from the course confident and eager in their pursuit of medieval culture.

Modules

Semester One

You should register for the following modules:

ENG40760 Introduction to Literary Research Methods (10 credits)

ENG40220 Hands, Quills, Pens and Parchments: Study of script and manuscripts (10 credits)

You should also register for two of the following modules (subject to availability):

HIS41840 Approaches to the Middle Ages (10 credits)

ENG41000 Old English: Route A (i): Unlocking the Wordhoard: an Introduction to Old English (10 credits)

ENG41010 Old English: Route B (ii): Battling with Belief: the Literature of Anglo-Saxon England (10 credits)

ENG41060 Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century English Literature ( 10 credits)

LAT10090 Beginner's Latin (10 credits) Introduction to Literary Research Methods (10 credits)

GRC40170 Perceptions of Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (10 credits)

Semester Two

You should register for two of the following modules (subject to availability):

ENG41020 Old English A (ii) (10 credits)

ENG41030 Old English B (ii) (10 credits)

ENG 41170 Making or Breaking the Tradition: English Literature in the Fifteenth

Century (10 credits)

ENG41050 Poetry, Piety and Patronage in the Renaissance (10 credits)

ENG40690 Writing Conflict in Early Modern Ireland (10 credits)

ENG 41080 Medievalism: The Reception of the Medieval in Modern and Postmodern Culture (10 credits)

Semester Three

You should register for the following module:

ENG41040 Medieval Dissertation (30 credits)

Modules:

ENG40330 and ENG40760 Introduction to Literary Research Methods

This module introduces students to the advanced methods and skills required in postgraduate studies of English. It is taught through a course of lectures and/or workshops which will address research resources, textual criticism and approaches to literature, critical writing and argumentation, methods of information retrieval and evaluation, evidence in literary scholarship, as well as practical issues of funding and career training.

On completing this module, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a clear grasp of key issues in literary research methods

2. Retrieve information about resources, methods and skills necessary to their chosen specialised field of postgraduate studies in English

3. Identify their own needs in terms of the pursuit of advanced literary research

It is compulsory for new MA, MLitt and PhD students in the School of English, Drama and Film to attend and pass this module. [MA students in Creative Writing, Directing for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies, Film Production and Film Studies are exempt from this requirement. MLitt and PhD students in Drama and Film are required to pass a version of this course in their own department.]

ENG40220 Hands, Quills, Pens, Parchments, and Books: The Study of Script, Manuscripts, and the Early Printed Book

This module has two complementary parts. One part will trace the evolution of styles of handwriting in Ireland and Great Britain from the earliest recorded scripts until the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. It will also look at the hierarchies of scripts that evolved, from those in the deluxe and prestigious illuminated manuscripts at the high end of production, down to throw-away scribbles, jottings and medieval graffiti at the low end. An on-site visit will be organized for the viewing at first hand of a range of medieval manuscripts, when issues raised in class will be examinable in reality. The second part of the module will introduce the technology of early manuscript and book production, exploring many related questions as it progresses (for example: how many sheep do you need to make a book?; how do you make gold leaf stick to parchment when you're illuminating?; what's the recipe for making the colour 'blue'?; how much did books cost, and could you afford them even if you were literate?; what's a penknife really for?) This second part of the module will also glance at some of the less conventional media in which scripts could appear, like stained-glass windows, tapestries, ceramics, tombstones, or even sometimes when scripts were moulded into banqueting food, upon the surfaces of jellies or onto the walls of castles made of pastry.

HIS41840 Approaches to the Middle Ages ( 10 credits)

This module introduces you to the various disciplines which contribute to Medieval studies, and you will also have the opportunity to discuss the problems that interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies present.

ENG41000 Old English: Route A (i): Unlocking the Wordhoard:

An Introduction to Old English (10 Credits)

This module aims to introduce students to the basics of Old English pronounciation, grammar and vocabulary, before progressing to reading short Old English texts. Using an interactive approach, by the end of the first semester it is intended that students will have a firm grounding in Old English grammar and should have gained some experience of translating a variety of prose and poetic texts.

ENG41010 Old English: Route B (ii): Battling with Belief: The Literature of Anglo-Saxon England (10 credits)

This module deals with the development of Old English literature, from the earliest written texts to the twelfth century. It will begin with an introduction to the Anglo-Saxon period, looking at the two major cultural traditions, the Germanic and the Christian, which merged in early medieval England. We will consider the transformation of England from a pagan society grounded in the Germanic heroic code to a Christian community in which the vestiges of the pagan past still resounded, although in a novel guise. Passages of particular interest will be chosen for translation and linguistic analysis, so as to complement the broader literary, historical and cultural issues under examination.

ENG41060 Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century English Literature (10 credits)

Although he is the most famous and influential author before Shakespeare, Chaucer died in mysterious circumstances. Many details of his professional life are well-known, fewer about his personal life, other than an abduction (rape?), marriage, and fatherhood. His writing career spanned the last thirty years or so of the fourteenth century. He was associated with Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. This module starts with the known facts of Chaucer's life and links those facts to his writing, including discussion of contemporary writers, such as the authors of Piers Plowman and of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The module invites analysis of political events, such as the overthrow of Richard II and the usurpation of Henry IV, the Peasants' Revolt, the Great Schism, and the implications of the Black Death. Close reading of Chaucer's writings stimulates awareness of the codes in which he articulated his prejudices and phobias- attitudes to women, to the mendicant orders, to homosexuals, to writers from the country, to marriage, to death, to music, to Lollards, to scribes, to churls. It is obvious that, although he may seem worthy of the title 'Teflon Poet', he made enemies during his sensationally active life, and his prose and poetry provided written evidence for any hostile observer to use against him, not least because he is among the first writers in English to wish to have his name in the public domain. Not simply entertainment, some of his most famous and unfinished work, The Canterbury Tales, are so politically sensitive that they may have caused a stir in high places; did Chaucer inadvertently write his own death warrant?

LAT10090 Beginner's Latin (10 credits)

This module is intended for beginners who wish to develop their language skills and their knowledge of Roman civilization. It offers a comprehensive introduction to the Latin language by concentrating on elementary Latin grammar and exploring some fundamental elements of ancient Roman culture. Students will also learn the basic principles of grammar and explore the Latin roots of the English language. The textbook is Wheelock's Latin (revised 6th edition).

GRC40170 Perceptions of Antiquity in Renaissance Italy (10 credits)

This module will introduce graduates to aspects of the reception of Classical Antiquity in Renaissance Italy. We will explore a range of different engagements with the literature and material culture of Antiquity. These will include responses to the Classical world in Renaissance poetry and prose literature, political and historical writing, and developments in archeology. The traditional tendency to 'purify' the Classical world along Christian lines and the incipient move to view all things Classical in their original antique contexts will also be examined.

Semester Two

ENG41080 Medievalism: The Reception of the Medieval in Modern and Postmodern Culture (10 credits)

Not only do traces of the medieval past lie all around us in myriad forms, perhaps their most important afterlife goes on in many of the words in daily use that we take for granted, but that past is being consciously and repeatedly recycled in our postmodern moment. This module will examine Medievalism, the contemporary and dynamic drive to engage with the medieval past. It will examine the ways in which this engagement displays itself in a wide variety of media and circumstances (for example, in film, on television, in literature, on the stage, in theme parks, etc), and will attempt to answer the question of what precisely it is that the modern/postmodern mentality seeks for and values in the medieval past, and whether what is sort for is simply a figment of the modern/postmodern imagination or whether it represents an actual reconnection with and recuperation of a past reality. This module should appeal to a wide range of tastes and interests, from those of the general student of modern/postmodern culture, to ones as specific as those of the student considering a career in the heritage industry.

ENG41020 Old English A (ii) (10 credits)

This module builds on the skills students have developed in Unlocking the Wordhoard 1 and furthers their knowledge of Old English literature by introducing a range of more challenging texts. Texts will include the Old English elegies, the Dream of the Rood, Beowulf and some Old English prose texts.

ENG41030 Old English B (ii) (10 credits)

This module concentrates on Beowulf and some complementary Old English texts, both poetry and prose. It will consider topics such as religion, the place of women in the poem, the monsters, the character of the hero and the date of the poem. Other texts read will focus on illuminating aspects of the poem.

ENG41170 Making or Breaking the Tradition: English Literature in the Fifteenth Century (10 credits)

The Fifteenth Century dawned upon the reign of a usurping king and a strengthening literate middle class, and was rife with social, political and religious tensions evident in the War of the Roses and the Lollard movement. Such tensions are reflected in the writing of the period and impact on the relationship between patron and poet and on chivalric and court literature. Moreover, the influence of a growing urban economy opens up the possibility for the less professional writer to find a voice and to begin writing from outside the centres of power. Questions arise about the influence of Chaucer on writers who wrote prolifically and with a consciousness of forging a new literary tradition in the vernacular. Finally, we will also examine one of the greatest shifts in the period, the transition from manuscript production to print, looking specifically at Caxton's prose.

ENG41050 Poetry, Piety and Patronage in the Renaissance (10 credits)

By approaching the work of many of the key poets of the Renaissance, this module seeks to read and interpret the poetry of the period by concentrating on relationships between poetic practice (print/manuscript, miscellanies, reception and circulation, poetic apprenticeship, imitation, ornament, rhetorical training) and cultural meaning (political intervention, gender ideologies, sexuality, religious ideologies, the court). By exploring a variety of sub-genres (sonnet sequences, pastoral, elegy) we will examine how these forms were inaugurated (imitation), how they were produced, and how they signified in the complex interpretive systems of the early modern period. In addition to detailed readings of primary texts, students will be expected to develop their own interests, researching a poet and/or form not covered directly in the module. It is hoped that the module will include a library visit and a gallery visit.

ENG40690 Writing Conflict in Early Modern Ireland (10 credits)

This module will examine a fascinating range of verse, dramatic, and prose texts produced in Ireland during the conflicts of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Considering the work of writers who in different ways had an investment in the country, the module will explore how Ireland is re-conceptualized in the varied writings of men and women from a range of national, religious, social and political backgrounds. Focusing on texts produced during periods of crisis, and paying particular attention to the writing of the Irish rebellion of 1641, this module will explore the impact of violence and conflict on the re-constitution of Irish identities during this period of remarkable social and political change. In doing so, the module will assess the usefulness of various theoretical frameworks (such as trauma theory, postcolonial theory, and the New British History) in the analysis of a range of discourses on early modern Ireland. Primary texts may include Edmund Spenser's A View of the State of Ireland, James Shirley's St Patrick for Ireland, John Temple's The Irish Rebellion, and Katherine Philips' Pompey.

ENG41040 Medieval Dissertation (30 credits)

The subject of the dissertation is decided by the student in consultation with a supervisor. It is an opportunity to research a topic of particular interest, resulting in written work of approximately 15,000 to 20,000.

Staff Contact Details

Course Coordinator:

Professor Alan J. Fletcher

Email: alan.fletcher@ucd.ie

Office: J217

Telephone: 7168418

Professor Danielle Clarke

Email: danielle.clarke@ucd.ie

Office: J218

Telephone: 7168694

Professor Mary Clayton

Email: mary.clayton@ucd.ie