EN254:
Chivalric Romance
Fall
2009
Wednesday
2:00-4:30
Click
here for the course syllabus.
Instructor: Robert Epstein
Office: 120 Donnarumma
Hall
Office Hours: Tuesday 11:00-12:00
& 1:00-3:00, or by appointment
Office extension: 2787
E-mail: repstein@fairfield.edu
DESCRIPTION
AND GOALS
Chivalric romance is one
of the most enduring legacies of medieval culture. This course traces the
history and development of this enormously popular and influential genre,
beginning with the birth of romance in the twelfth century. We will study
the invention of the idea of “courtly love” and its conventions,
and classic examples by Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes. We
will follow the rise of the legend of King Arthur from Celtic legend to the
authoritative treatment of “the matter of Britain,” Malory’s
Le Morte d’Arthur. And we will analyze closely some of the
great English variations on classic romances, in the anonymous Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight and in several of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales. Attention
throughout will be on developing skills of close-reading, thesis development,
and argumentation, by way of such themes as:
narrative structures and motifs; the depiction of nature and civilization;
the stylized representation of gender and class; the interplay of reality
and fantasy; theories of authorship and audience; connections to history-writing
and to other literary genres.
REQUIREMENTS
The most essential component
of the course is class attendance and participation. All students are required
to read closely the assignment for each class meeting and to attend class
prepared to discuss it. Students are expected to be familiar with all of the
material in the assigned readings.
Each week, students will
write a response paper, about a page in length, on the assigned readings.
These will be kept in a portfolio, and evaluated collectively at the end of
the semester. There will also be two essays of approximately 5-6 pages each
due during the semester, as well as a final exam. Grades for the course will
be calculated according to the following formula:
Essays are due at the beginning
of class on the day indicated on the syllabus. Unless I have explicitly granted
an extension before the due date, late papers will be penalized one-third
of a letter grade per day. (A paper that would have earned a B+ will receive
a B if it is one day late, a B- if it is two days late, and so on.)
After essays are submitted,
I will read them and return them with grades and with comments and suggestions.
Students will then have one week from the day the
graded papers are returned to revise the papers in light of my comments
and to resubmit them for re-grading. The grade may be improved by
as much as a full letter grade. The grade may not go up at all, but it will
not go down. This is to encourage you to think of every essay as a work
in progress and to revise your work as thoroughly and as frequently as possible.
Papers submitted past the deadline may not be revised or resubmitted.
FORMAT
OF ESSAYS
All submitted papers should
follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for formatting a paper.
These guidelines can be found in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers, 6th ed., which is available in the Reference Section of the library,
but they are also summarized on pp. 148-150 of Diana Hacker’s Pocket
Style Manual, with sample pages on pp. 151-154. When commenting on your
essays, I will refer to Hacker on matters of format and style.
ACADEMIC
HONESTY
No secondary critical sources
are required for the essays and written assignments assigned in this course,
and in general I would prefer that you not use any. I am most interested in
your own analysis of and response to the poems we read, as well as the thesis
you are defending when comparing two poems.
You are, of course, always
free to consult other sources. But any source that you use in writing an essay
must be fully cited. The source must appear in the list of works cited at
the end of the essay, and each source must be cited on every occasion that
you make use of its words or ideas. This is true if the source is your primary
source (the poem you are studying) or a critical source (an analysis of the
work published elsewhere), and it is true if the source is printed or electronic,
including internet sources. Follow the MLA style of in-text citation and lists
of works cited described in A Pocket Style Manual, pp. 128-148.
The failure to fully cite
sources within your submitted work is a form of plagiarism. Plagiarism is
the appropriation of ideas, data, work, or language of others and submitting
them as one’s own to satisfy the requirements of a course. Plagiarism
constitutes theft and deceit. Special care should be taken, when cutting and
pasting materials or when paraphrasing, to cite sources correctly and to use
quotation marks around exact words from source materials. Actions that result
in plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional. Consequently, students
must understand the concept of plagiarism. When reading, processing, or using
materials from any source, appropriate documentation is always essential.
Resources such as the library
(ext. 2178) and the Writing Center (www.fairfield.edu/writingcenter)
are available on campus to assist you in your academic endeavors. You are
encouraged to take advantage of these resources.