Humanities 303
The Monstrous Middle Ages

Announcements

Our featured vocabulary word for Tuesday: hybridity

Your assigned topic for our class exercise on Tuesday has been posted.
Check the link in the Hrolf Kraki box below and come prepared

Course Links

An example of Pre-Writing (Genealogy in the Prologue to Beowulf)

CourseVocabulary

Syllabus

Grading criteria for in-class exams and papers.

Epics and Sagas
Daily Syllabus

Last Update: 2/3/2010

 

January 19	Course Introduction:  Augustine on prodigies; Bernard of Clairvaux on art in the Cloister (Xerox)
January 21	Simek, pp. 39-45 (See link below); Bovey, pp. 1-15.
January 26	Camille, Chapter I; Bildhauer and Mills, Introduction (pp. 1-27); Bovey, pp. 15-27.
January 28	Camille, Chapter II;  Beowulf, pp. 3-43, pp. 84-85, pp. 91-93, and pp. 95-97.
February 2	Beowulf, pp. 43-56; Tolkien:  Beowulf:  The Monsters and the Critics; pp. 86-89, "Grettir the Strong and the Trollwoman," and Jane Chance, "The Problem of Grendel's Mother," pp. 152-167.
February 4	Beowulf, pp. 56-78; Riches, "Saints and Dragons in Medieval Thought," (pp. 196-218) in Bildhauer and Mills; and Mitchell and Robinson, "The Beowulf Manuscript," in Beowulf (pp. 81-84).
February 9	The Prologue to the Thidrekssaga (Link); On Dwarves (Link); The Saga of Hrolf Kraki, Introduction and pp. 1-52
February 11	The Saga of Hrolf Kraki, pp. 53-78; Review Chance in Beowulf, pp. 155-164.
February 16	Hildebrandslied (See link) ; The Nibelungenlied,  Chapters 6-10 (See link); Lionarons, "The Otherworld in the Nibelungenlied"  (Xerox)
February 18	In-Class Essay on Epics and Sagas

Beowulf

Questions for Discussion and Pre-Writing
(for Thursday, February 4)

Questions for Discussion and Pre-Writing
(for Tuesday, February 2)

Questions for Discussion and Pre-Writing
(for Thursday, January 28)

Beowulf in Cyberspace

The bilingual Beowulf

Dragon-Illumination

Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture

Lindesfarne Hell

Intercultural Space in Anglo-Saxon times

A Carpet Page from the Lindesfarne Gospels

Carpet Pages from the Nordenfalk Gospel Book

The Sutton Hoo Room

The amazing Anglo-Saxon trove found last year in Staffordshire

The Saga of Hrolf Kraki

Questions for our class exercise and Pre-Writing
(for Tuesday, February 9)
Please come with your topic prepared and prewriting in hand.

Prologue to the Thidrekssaga

"On Dwarves" from the Ambraser Book of Heroes

Old Norse Culture and Literature

The world of the Norse

Old Norse in the twelfth century

Old High German Culture and the Nibelungenlied

Albert K. Wimmer's introduction to the Nibelungenlied (Read pp. 63-65 only)

Siegfried in the Scandanavian tradition

The Nibelungenlied (the Brunhild episodes)

Download the Nibelungenlied as a PDF file

The Shape of the World

Reading for Thursday: Rudolf Simek on mappaemundi

Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
Page 44
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48


mappaemundi: Questions for Discussion and Pre-Writing (January 21)

Ebstorfer mappa mundi (University of Lüneburg)

Steinberg

Ebstorf (annotated)

Hereford mappa mundi (complete)

Hereford mappa mundi (schematic)

Hereford mappa mundi (Section 2)

Hereford mappa mundi (Section 5)

Hereford mappa mundi (Section 8)

Hereford mappa mundi (Section 11)

Psalter mappa mundi (complete)

Psalter mappa mundi (close view)

Psalter commentary by Prof. Henry Davis

Index of early medieval maps

Notions of Time and Space

Eternity and the World

Monstrous Time

Monstrous Space

Know your Monsters

Marginalia from the Book of Hours of Maria of Burgundy

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Liminality (Tuesday, January 26)

Questions for Discussion and Pre-Writing