Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Enforced requisites: courses 10A, 10B. Exploration of medieval story cycles and story collections as narrative forms. Medieval story cycles engage in complex literary conversations across medieval cultures, periods, genres, and languages, while story collections often stage art of storytelling within narrative frame to invite self-consciousness about powers of literary production itself. Texts may include cycles such as texts gathered as Matter of Britain, Matter of Rome, or Matter of France; also Mabinogi, manuscript collections such as Auchinleck manuscript or Exeter book, framed narratives such as Decameron, Canterbury Tales, One Thousand and One Nights, and Gower’s Confessio Amantis, or collections of exempla, legends, and dicta. May be repeated for credit with topic or instructor change. P/NP or letter grading.
