Syllabus
INTRODUCTION
Week 1
Topic 1. OLD ENGLISH POETRY - TECHNOLOGIES OF READING AND WRITING: 1 - ORALITY/TEXTUALITY
Weeks 1-2
Helena Znojemská
The two sessions will explore, in theoretical and practical terms, the various aspects of the position of Old English poetry in the transitional stage between full orality and full literacy. Among the issues considered will be: 1, the conventions of manuscript recording of vernacular poems in comparison with other types of text and their possible interpretation; 2, the extent to which the tools developed for organizing the composition of a poem (or, strictly speaking, performance) in the conditions of orality were retained in the literary context and the ways in which this may influence the construction of meaning of texts built in such a manner.
MATERIAL
A selection of manuscript facsimiles
The Wanderer
SECONDARY READING (selections)
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Reprint: London, New York: Routledge, 1988
O'Keefe, Katherine O'Brien. Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990
Pasternack, Carol B. The Textuality of Old English Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Minnis, Alastair and Ian Johnson, eds. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism II: The Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
Topic 2. OLD ENGLISH POETRY - TECHNOLOGIES OF READING AND WRITING: 2 - POETIC DICTION
Weeks 3-4
Helena Znojemská
Poems in the vernacular will be confronted with the modes of writing and interpretation as presented in mediaeval Latin literary criticism. In this way, we will be able to explore, on one hand, the specificity of Old English poetic diction, on the other hand, also the manner in which it interacted with Latinate models.
MATERIAL
The Seafarer, Christ II (selection), The Whale
SECONDARY READING (selections)
Minnis, Alastair and Ian Johnson, eds. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism II: The Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005
Curtius, Ernst Robert. Evropská literatura a latinský středověk. Praha: Triáda 1998
Stanley, Eric G. "Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer and The Penitent's Prayer". Anglia, 73 (1956), 413-466
Topic 3. OLD ENGLISH PROSE: A SURVEY
Week 5
Jan Čermák
The lecture, based on ample quotation from Old English prose in Modern English and/or Czech translations, will survey the generic variety of the prose produced in Anglo-Saxon England with regard to its functions and its relationship to the prose of the period.
MATERIAL
Bately, J. "The nature of Old English Prose". In: Godden, M. - M. Lapidge (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, Cambridge University Press 1991, pp. 71-87
Swanton, M. Anglo-Saxon Prose. London, 1975
Topic 4. ON THE MORPHOLOGY OF HEROIC EPIC AND ROMANCE
Week 6
Jan Čermák
Relying heavily on the texts of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the lecture will discuss several topoi shared by the two genres with an aim to demonstrate some of the most salient prototypical similarities and differences in the way (English) heroic epic and romance is constructed.
MATERIAL
Andrew, M. - R. A. Waldron. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript. Rev. ed., University of Exeter Press, 1987.
Klaeber, F. Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg. 3rd ed., Boston: D. C. Heath, 1950
SECONDARY READING
Auerbach, E. Mimesis. Zobrazení skutečnosti v západoevropských literaturách. Mladá fronta, Praha, 1968
Brewer, D. - J. Gibson (eds.). A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Arthurian Studies XXXVIII, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer
Niles, J. D. - R. E. Bjork (eds.). A Beowulf Handbook. University of Nebraska Press, 1996
Topic 5. SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT AND THE PEARL: THE OTHER COURTLY TRADITION
Week 7
Jan Čermák
The lecture will discuss these poems as representatives of the tradition within the register of late medieval English courtly writing that can be characterized as introvert and native, preoccupied with moral themes and employing, to a large extent, the inherited poetic diction. This tradition will be seen as opposed to the extrovert and cosmopolitan courtly tradition of writing as represented primarily by the dream visions of Geoffrey Chaucer.
MATERIAL
M. Andrew - R. A. Waldron. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript. Rev. ed., University of Exeter Press, 1987
Topic 6. ENGLISH MEDIEVAL LYRIC: A SURVEY
Week 8
Jan Čermák
The lecture will attempt a survey of later medieval English lyric (c. 1300-1500) in terms of theme and genre and within the context of Middle English literature.
MATERIAL
Davies, R. T. Medieval English Lyrics. London, 1963
Luria, M. S. - Hoffmann, R. L. Middle English Lyrics. Norton, 1974
Brown, C. Religious lyrics of the XVth century. London and Oxford, 1939
SECONDARY READING
Duncan, T. D. (ed.). A Companion to the Middle English Lyric. Boydell and Brewer 2006
Dronke, P. The Medieval Lyric. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 3rd edition, 1996
Topic 7. CHAUCER'S MASTERY OF LANGUAGE AND HIS LEGACY
Week 9
Šárka Kűhnová
This lecture will discuss Geoffrey Chaucer as a master of language and a writer who inspired the English Renaissance. Looking at examples from The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, it will show Chaucer as an author familiar with medieval discourse on language and style and attentive to various registers. The main focus will be on Troilus and Criseyde, its psychological realism and Chaucer's pioneering concern about language and the fate of his poetry.
MATERIAL
Benson, L.D., Robinson, F.N. (eds.). The Riverside Chaucer. Oxford: OUP, 1988.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, Troilus and Criseyde. Transl. by Nevill Coghill. London and New York: Penguin Books, 1971.
Topic 8. SPENSER, MARLOWE, SHAKESPEARE - NARRATIVE POEMS
Week 10
Šárka Kűhnová
This lecture will discuss the literary language of Renaissance poetry, focusing on Shakespeare. It will consider the influence of Spenser, and will concentrate on the fashionable Ovidian poems - Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
MATERIAL
Borbrook, David, Woudhuysen, H. R. The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse. London and New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
Orgel, Stephen (ed.). Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Poems and Translations. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
Prince, F. T. (ed.). The Poems. The Arden Shakespeare. London and New York: Routledge, 1988.
Burrow, Colin (ed.). William Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Topic 9. SOME PROBLEMS OF SHAKESPEAREAN TEXTUAL CRITICISM
Week 11
Šárka Kűhnová
This lecture will outline the main problems of Shakespearean textual criticism, and will offer an extensive discussion of Shakespeare's Sonnets and the related questions of authorship, publication and date.
MATERIAL
Ingram, W.G., Redpath, Theodore (eds.). Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: University of London Press, 1964.
Kerrigan, John (ed.). The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
Booth, Stephen (ed.). Shakespeare's Sonnets. (New Haven and London, 1977).
Evans, G.B. (ed.). The Sonnets. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
Duncan-Jones, Katherine (ed.). Shakespeare's Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare. ITP, 1998.
Burrow, Colin (ed.). William Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: OUP, 2002.
Topic 10. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS AND MILTON'S SONNETS
Week 12 - 18/12
Šárka Kűhnová
This seminar will be a follow-up of the previous lecture. We shall look at a number of Shakespeare's sonnets and get acquainted with various editorial policies. In the remaining time students will be introduced to Milton's sonnets and their publishing and editorial contexts (the making of the 1645 Poems) that differ from the Shakespearean.
MATERIAL
See Topic 11
Carey, John (ed.). Milton: Complete Shorter Poems. 2nd ed. London and New York: Longman, 1997.
Annotation
Cílem kursu je zaměřit se na vybrané problémy britské a irské kulturní historie a vést studenty k metodologické diskusi. Jde o vysoce specializovaná témata vycházející z badatelské činnosti jednotlivých vyučujících.
Předmět je strukturován do tématických modulů, které se pravidelně obměňují. Výuka v jednom semestru obsáhne dva, maximálně tři moduly.