ENG 216 - Reading Romance

1 course unit

In this course, students study the genre of the medieval romance, a genre which eventually gives rise to the novel. Through a focus on four literary texts, students explore the importance of literary structure, narrative voice, and the way that social and cultural values are foundational to the representation of the protagonist. The first two texts are a romance by Chrétien de Troyes, the essential model of the medieval romance, and an additional English romance. The next reading, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, puts chivalric and romance values into a more ironic context. Selected tales from the Canterbury Tales in Middle English highlight Chaucer’s important transformation of romance conventions in the context of emerging bourgeois and mercantile social values as well as new understandings of authorship.
Meets departmental Genealogies approach.
Meets general academic requirements L and W and effective Fall 2013 HU and W.