ENGL310C Non-Chaucerian Middle English Literature (Piers Plowman) Syllabus
Prof. Sarah Tolmie Fall Term 2022
Location: ML 246
Office Hours: Hagey Hall 266 11:45-12:45 Mondays and Wednesdays
Course Description:
This course is supposed to teach you about Middle English literature not written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the most famous mainstream writer of the fourteenth century. Accordingly, it will teach you about the period’s most famous alternative writer — or tradition, as little is known about the author himself — namely the dream poem The Vision of Piers Plowman, probably written by William Langland. This complex and challenging text survives in more than 50 manuscripts and in three overlapping versions (A, B and C: we will read B, the most popular); it participates in, and weirdly transcends, every important religious and literary genre of its century. Gaining a sense of what is going on in Piers Plowman allows you to understand big ideas that prevailed during more than four centuries of European medieval and early modern culture and that continue to reverberate through our contemporary literature, philosophy and media.
Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes:
This long poem is in Middle English, the Germanic-Romance creole that is the nearest ancestor of our contemporary English today. Its fluid rules and spellings, admixture of languages and registers, as well as its internationalism, are key precursors of the state of the English language that we know. We will learn some Middle English in this course, though we will read the bulk of the poem in facing-page translation. We will also practice our skills in literary and historical interpretation, public speaking, and academic writing. Reading a masterpiece from this long ago will also allow us to re-examine some of our cultural assumptions: to appreciate the otherness of Piers Plowman is necessarily to cultivate both the powers of imaginative identification and of tolerance.
Required Text:
Piers Plowman: William Langland, A Norton Critical Edition, eds. Elizabeth Robertson and Stephen H. A. Shepherd (WW Norton, 2006)
This edition/translation of the B-text is ordered at the UW bookstore and can be purchased online. It is imperative to use this edition. It has the original text plus a translation, notes and excellent critical essays. Line numbers given throughout the course will be to this version.
Assignments and mark breakdown:
Detailed instructions for each assignment are provided on the course site. Translation test (15%)
Two Middle English translation tests will be given in class, and the lower grade of the two will be dropped. Each test is 45 minutes and the goal is to translate 10 lines of PP (from set passages that are pre-identified) into contemporary English. Each test is graded out of 50.
Five Minutes of Fame Talk (10%)
A five-minute informal but organized talk on any aspect of PP of the student’s choice. No slides, no aids, just talking. Timing must be strictly observed. Marked out of 10, and 1 point of the 10 is given for posting a two-sentence introduction to the topic on the Five Minutes of Fame Discussion Board. Talk dates are randomly assigned and are found on the course schedule, below and on the site.
Writing Assignment 1: Weird Word of the Week (10%)
This 500-word assignment asks students to examine Langland’s use of one single word, on one single occasion in the poem, using the resources of the Middle English Dictionary, a key tool in the field.
Writing Assignment 2: WTF PP (25%)
This 1000-word assignment asks students to examine an individual incident or speech in the poem that stands out to them, and to try to make sense of it by comparing it to a parallel or contrastive moment in the text. Secondary scholarship is recommended for this assignment though not required.
Writing Assignment 3: Langland And (30%)
This 1500-word assignment asks students to compare Langland’s poem to a work of art or social formation of their choice, from any period, in any genre or medium. It is an exercise in lateral thinking, and a practical trial of the pros and cons of making transhistorical comparisons in literary study. Secondary scholarship is recommended, though not required, for this assignment.
Participation (10%)
This means attending class regularly, keeping up with readings, contributing to seminar-style discussions, and asking and answering questions. It also entails being a civil and inclusive class citizen.
Lateness policy
Writing assignments must be submitted to the appropriate Dropbox by the deadline, or they are late and incur a 10% penalty. After one week (7 days) they will not be accepted and earn zero.
Documentable absences for COVID or other illness are legitimate reasons to seek an extension; please do not do so gratuitously. Requests for extensions must come at least one week before deadlines.
Five Minutes of Fame talks are pre-scheduled and cannot be changed casually. If there is a documentable reason why you cannot do it on your assigned day, you must contact me for an alternate day at least two days beforehand. Missed talks will earn zero.
Translation tests are held during standard class time and cannot be rescheduled unless a doctor’s note or other documentation is provided. Missed tests earn zero.
Schedule of classes and readings (also available on the course site)
Week 1: Wednesday Sept 7
Required Reading (RR): The Prologue
Recommended Reading: E Talbot Donaldson, Summary of the Poem (Norton 495-503)
Week 2: Monday Sept 12 RR: Passūs I
Rec: The Athanasian Creed (Norton 373-4) Wednesday Sept 14:
RR: Passūs II
Rec: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse Five Minutes of Fame: Arabella Abid
Week 3: Monday Sept 19 RR: Passūs III
Five Minutes of Fame: Grace-Ann Bock
Wednesday Sept 21 RR: Passūs IV
Five Minutes of Fame: Jo-Ann Bonnett
WEIRD WORD OF THE WEEK DUE
Week 4: Monday Sept 26 RR: Passūs V
FMOF: Abryna Bulford Wednesday Sept 28 RR: Passūs V
TRANSLATION TEST 1
Week 5: Monday Oct 7 RR: Passūs VI
FMOF: Omar Elkadri Wednesday Oct 9 RR: Passūs VI
FMOF: Youssef Hassan
READING WEEK
Week 6: Monday Oct 17 RR: Passūs VII
FMOF: Ben Humphries Wednesday Oct 19
RR: Passūs VIII
FMOF: Angelic-Gail Ibay
WTF PP DUE
Week 7: Monday Oct 24 RR: Passūs IX
FMOF: Jae Kim Wednesday Oct 28 RR: Passūs X FMOF: Nick King
Week 8: Monday Oct 31 RR: Passūs XI
FMOF: Alexia Lima Wednesday Nov 2 RR: Passūs XII
FMOF: Zachary Mason
Week 9: Monday Nov 7 RR: Passūs XIII FMOF: Michael Sillers Wednesday Nov 9
RR: Passūs XIV FMOF: Stephen Xu
Week 10: Monday Nov 14
RR: Passūs XV Wednesday Nov 16 RR: Passūs XVI
Week 11: Monday Nov 21 RR: Passūs XVII Wednesday Nov 23
RR: Passūs XVIII
TRANSLATION TEST 2
Week 12: Monday 28 Nov RR: Passūs XVIII Wednesday 30 Nov
RR: Passūs IX-XX
LANGLAND AND DUE
Week 13: Monday Dec 5
Conscience Runs off Screaming: Passus XX
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