EN256:
Myths & Legends of Ireland and Britain
Fall
2009
Monday
and Thursday 2:00-3:15
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
This course studies the
literature of early medieval cultures of Ireland and Great Britain. The focus
is on the surviving, large-scale works – epics, sagas, and tale cycles
– that represent major repositories of ideas of nationhood or of the
cultural values of the peoples that produced them. The first part of the course
focuses on Ireland and the Táin Bó Cuailnge, as well
as other Irish legends and their modern retellings, particularly in period
of Irish nationalism. We will then turn to the Welsh legends contained in
the Mabinogion, to Latin Christian legends of British and Irish saints,
and finally to the Old English epic Beowulf. Some of the critical
issues we will discuss in relation to these texts include: the relationship
between pagan and Christian elements; conceptions of law, kinship, and nationhood;
warrior culture and the idea of the hero; the status of art and poetry; oral
and scribal literary transmission; the construction of gender.
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.