ENGL 40248 - Books Under Suspicion: Controversial Writers from Chaucer to St. Thomas More

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

Although the period between Chaucer and St. Thomas More saw the rise of modern English literature as we know it, it was also a period of severe social injustice, political oppression, church controversy and even martyrdom. Starving peasants rebelled against their overlords, knights rode off on crusade amidst anti-war critique, English translations of the Bible were suppressed by church authorities, women writers struggled to be heard amidst gender prejudice, and the king Chaucer worked for was deposed and murdered. This course will examine how the major writers of late medieval and early Tudor England negotiated these troubled waters, writing sometimes candidly and sometimes secretly about dangerous or disturbing matters. Authors to be studied will include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, Christine de Pizan, Margery Kempe, Sir Thomas Malory, William Tyndale, Anne Askew and St. Thomas More, as well as the anonymous ballads of Robin Hood. Topics to be discussed will include: knighthood, visionary writing, attitudes toward women's learning and teaching, Jews and Muslims, emerging struggles for intellectual freedom, parliamentary rights and free speech, the Peasants Rising of 1381, and the rise of dissent.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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