English 512
Romance and Revival
Instructor: Siân Echard (sian@mail.ubc.ca)
Office hours: Buchanan Tower 514: M 11:00-12:00; F 10:30-11:30; or by appointment
Romance and Revivals
While medieval romance never entirely disappeared after the Middle Ages, it is certainly the case that two great revivals, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were crucial to returning romance to a central place in the British (and broader European) consciousness. This course will read a selection of medieval romances in the context of these revivals, considering the antiquarian, picturesque, Romantic, and Victorian deployments of both the popular and the high romance traditions. We will pay particular attention to the material manifestations of the revivals, considering painting, sculpture, and architecture as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century printings of medieval romance material.
Texts in the Bookstore:
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (Penguin)
Sioned Davies, trans., The Mabinogion (Oxford)
Thomas Malory, Le Morte D’Arthur, ed. Stephen H. A. Shepherd (Norton)
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (Oxford)
Stephen H. A. Shepherd, ed., Middle English Romances (Norton)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King (Penguin) Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (Oxford)
Other readings are available online, and will be linked in the reading schedule below. Note that to access the materials that are online in the Library Course Reserve System, you will need to sign in to Connect.
General Expectations for Reading
Texts in bold on the syllabus are readings intended to be common to all of us. The “supplementary” lists, on the other hand, are materials that offer useful background from a variety of angles. I don’t expect anyone to read everything. What I’m proposing instead is that you skim the list looking for things that interest you in particular. Read as much or as little as you like. I hope that this approach will result in a range of extra materials being pulled into our conversations. I’m also happy to add materials you think might be useful. There will be a web version of the syllabus, and I am happy to update it regularly with your suggestions. You might find it particularly helpful to read something from the supplementary list, where appropriate, on a day that you’ve signed up to provide discussion prompts. Remember too that these readings are grouped quite roughly, and some might be appropriate for more than one class.
Assignments and Weighting: [tentative]
Talking about stuff (small): 3 questions @ 5% each 15
Talking about stuff (medium): dead mice 10
Talking about stuff (bigger): presentation 25
Writing about stuff (planning): paper proposal 5
Writing about stuff (planning): research bibliography 10
Writing about stuff (doing): research paper 35
ALTERNATIVELY, for the final paper, in place of the proposa/ bibliography/ paper sequence:
Draft of paper: 10
Revised version of paper: 40
Reading Schedule: January
W 8
The Native Romance/ Making the Nation
W 15
Havelok the Dane, in Shepherd
Helen Cooper, “Introduction: ‘Enter, pursued with a bear’, in The English Romance through Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. pp. 1-44 (online at Library Reserve)
QUESTIONS
- Grant
- Jade
- Kristan
- Kelly
Supplementary:
“The Author to the Reader” and “Britaine” from William Camden, Britannia
“Song One” from Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (EEBO)
Christopher Cannon, “The Spirit of Romance: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, and Floris and Blancheflor,” in The Grounds of English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 172-209
Helen Cooper, “Restoring the rightful heir…,” in The English Romance through Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 324-360 (online at Library Reserve)
Susan Crane, “Introduction” and “Romances of Land and Lineage,” in Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 1-52 (online at Library Reserve)
John Finlayson, “Definitions of Middle English Romance,” in Shepherd
Richard Moll, “’Nest Pas Autentik, Mais Apocrophum’: Haveloks and Their Reception in Medieval England,” Studies in Philology 105.2 (2008): 165-206 (JStor)
W 22
Bevis of Hampton [read online here]
QUESTIONS
- Kristan
- Cam
- Grant
- Jade
Supplementary:
1503 printing of Bevis (EEBO)
The Famous and Renowned History of Sir Bevis of Southampton 1689 (EEBO)
“Song Two” from Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (EEBO)
Ballad of St George for England 1693 (EEBO)
Descriptions of Southampton from Britannica curiosa (1777) and the Southampton Guide (1775): vol. 3, pp. 33-34 in Britannica curiosa and pp. 40-42 of the Southampton Guide (ECCO: search on titles, and then within titles, search on “Bevis”; remember to search across all volumes in Britannica curiosa)
Linda Brownrigg, “The Taymouth Hours and the Romance of Beves of Hampton,” English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700 1 (1989): 222-41 (online at Library Reserve)
Kofi Campbell, “Nation-Building Colonialist-Style in Bevis of Hampton” Exemplaria 18.1 (2006): 205-32
Siân Echard, “The True History of Sir Guy (and What Happened to Sir Bevis?,” in Printing the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 60-96 (online at Library Reserve)
Ralph Hanna, “Reading romance in London: The Auchinleck Manuscript and Laud misc 622,” in London Literature, 1300-1380 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 104-47
W 29
The Sege of Melayne, in Shepherd
QUESTIONS
- Rodrigo
- Grant
- Jade
- Garth
Supplementary:
Suzanne Conklin Akbari, “Incorporation in the Siege of Melayne,” in Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance, ed. Nicola McDonald (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 22-44 Geraldine Heng, “The Romance of England: Richard Coer de Lyon and the Politics of Race, Religion, Sexuality, and Nation,” in Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 63-114
February
W 5
Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
QUESTIONS
- Morag
- Garth
PRESENTATIONS
- Rodrigo
- Kristan
Supplementary:
Michael Alexander, “History, the Revival and the PRB: Westminster, Ivanhoe, visions and revisions,” in Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 127-48 (online at Library Reserve)
Twilights and Mist: Celtic and Gothic
W 12
Sir Launfal, in Shepherd
QUESTIONS
- Cam
- Morag
- Mary-Anne
- Kelly
Supplementary:
Sir Landevale in Shepherd
John Keats, “The Eve of St Agnes”
John Keats, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Michael Alexander, “History and Legend: The subjects of poetry and painting,” in Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 149-64 (online at Library Reserve)
W 19
W 26
The Mabinogi : read The Four Branches in Davies, as well as
Lady Charlotte Guest, selections from her preface, notes, and translations
Sidney Lanier, Introduction and illustrations to The Boy’s Mabinogion (online at Library Reserve)
QUESTIONS
- Morag
PRESENTATIONS
- Grant
- Garth
Supplementary:
Edward Jones, from Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards
Edward Jones, from The Bardic Museum (online at Library Reserve)
Iolo Morgannwg, notes forThe History of the British Bards
Katie Trumpener, “Harps Hung Upon the Willow,” in Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 3-34 (online at Library Reserve)
March
W 5
W 12
Castle of Otranto and Northanger Abbey
QUESTIONS
- Rodrigo
- Mary-Anne
PRESENTATIONS
- Morag
- Cam
Supplementary:
Arthur Johnston, “Introduction,” in Enchanted Ground: The Study of Medieval Romance in the 18th Century (University of London: The Athlone Press, 1964), pp. 1-59 (online at Library Reserve)
The Once and Future King
W 19
Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur
QUESTIONS
- Kelly
- Garth
- Mary-Anne
Supplementary:
Additional MS 59678, the Winchester Manuscript
“Rediscovering Malory: Digitising The Morte Dathur,” British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog
Wynkyn de Worde’s 1529 printing (EEBO):
Lotte Hellinga, “The Malory Manuscript,” British Library Journal 3.2 (1977): 91-113 (online at Library Reserve)
David Matthews, “’We Are Dreadfully Real’”: Forgetting Middle English,” in The Making of Middle English, 1765-1910 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), pp. xiii-xxxv (online at Library Reserve)
W 26
Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur
QUESTIONS
- Kristan
- Rodrigo
PRESENTATION
- Jade
April
W 2
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
QUESTIONS
- Cam
PRESENTATIONS
- Mary-Anne
- Kelly
Supplementary:
Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Lancelot” and “The Day before the Trial”
Matthew Arnold, “Tristram and Iseult”
William Morris, “The Defence of Guenevere”
Charles Dellheim, “The Vision of History,” in The Face of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 33-75 (online at Library Reserve)
Mark Girouard, “Victoria and Albert,” in The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 111-28 (online at Library Reserve)
David Lowenthal, “Changing the Past,” in The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 263-362 (online at Library Reserve)