ENGL 90249 - Spenser and the Epic Romance

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

English

Description:

In the more than forty years that I have been teaching Spenser at Princeton, I have become more and more convinced that one cannot teach him without teaching Virgil, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso as well. One can do without almost all of Malory; the Faerie Queene makes a single cameo appearance. Therefore the first three weeks of this seminar are devoted to the achievement of Virgil in creating Aeneas, the founder of Rome. As the Middle Ages wear on, other heroes arrive, in particular, the Roland of the Chanson de Roland, that great epic of France. Sometime in the fifteenth century Roland crosses the Alps and takes on a new life and name - Orlando - and becomes the hero of two of the most important romance epics of Italian literature: Boiardo's Orlando inamorato and Ariosto's Orlando furioso. We will end this Italian sojourn reading Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, his epic on the First Crusade. The rest of the term will be devoted to how Spenser converted this Italian material to his English purposes.

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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