Annotation
This course provides an overview of the development of medieval writing in England, Scotland and Ireland in a cultural and historical context. The focus of this overview is Old and Middle English literature in its main streams and representatives. The method of interpretation involves guided readings of selected texts in order to highlight central issues in medieval literature:
1. the position of the (literary) text in the early and high Middle Ages;
2. the mutual relationship between oral and written, or English and non-English (French, Latin) traditions;
3. the concept of genre, the development of genres and their interrelations;
4. the position of medieval insular literature in the European context. Overview of topics: i. Issues in Old English heroic epic; ii. After the coming of Christianity: Latin literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, Old English religious epic; iii. Readings 1: Beowulf, Exodus; iv. Old English poetry - a genre overview; v. Medieval Irish Literature; vi. Old English prose; vii. From Old English to Middle English Literature - Summary; viii. Middle English lyric; ix. Courtly literature: romance and related genres; reading 2: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ; x. Literature in the Urban Environment; xi. Medieval Scottish Literature; xii. Reading 3: Chaucer. This chronological and genre overview is further systematized and the themes presented as problems based on analysis of the texts. Předmět je vyučován v angličtině.
