ENGL 43241 - Seminar: Censorship & Literary Freedom in Medieval England and Ireland

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

Medieval writers operated in a world fraught with political and ecclesiastical controversy, sometimes extending to censorship, imprisonment and judicial execution. Yet at the same time, evidence survives of a surprising degree of tolerance for certain radical ideas. This course will examine how the major writers of late medieval England negotiated official censorship, but also exploited or earned tolerances extended by the authorities. English authors to be studied will include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, John Wyclif, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Marguerite Porete (the only medieval woman author to have been burned at the stake for her writings). These texts will be read alongside excerpts from some anonymous English texts, including political lyrics like the Kildare poems, popular imitations of Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales, and Wycliffite writings. Articles of inquisition, statutes, legal defenses, trial records, petitions and broadsides will also be available for research. The aim is to help illuminate how literary writers sought to defend or enlarge their religious or political orthodoxies in response to the challenges of the time. Topics to be discussed will include: reception of visionary writing, attitudes toward women's learning and preaching, controversial religious doctrines (like universal salvation, millenarianism, and intellectual freedom), and political controversies over the Commons' control of royal tyranny, the Rising of 1381, the deposition of Richard II, and the problems of colonial Irish literary culture.

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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