This course considers the European Middle Ages – from the late antique foundational autobiography of St. Augustine’s `Confessions’ through Prudentius’ paradigmatic allegory, `The Psychomaquia’, to three appreciably different versions of epic in the `Roland’, `The Cid’ and `Digenis Akritis’. We then move to Chrétien de Troyes’ originary romance `Cligés’, Guillaume de Lorris’ `Rose’, the subaltern cultural production of Jews and Moors, the the practices of pilgrimage and the contexts constructed by Chaucer, as well as the invention of the modern short story in Boccaccio’s `Decameron’. A fieldtrip to the Cloisters Museum is also planned.
