Medieval Literature

Offered 2023-2024

  • Time: Thursdays, 1:45 – 3:15 pm
  • Tuition:
    • Seminar with writing tutorial: $75 per month (10 months, August through May)
    • Seminar only: $60 per month (10 months, August through May)
  • Location: Signal Mountain, Tennessee
  • Grades: 9-12 AND 8th grade strong readers
  • Prerequisites: Writing II or equivalent writing skills OR take Writing II in addition to this course
  • Pairing: You can pair this course with Medieval History!
  • Description: Through works of Medieval and Renaissance literature, this course examines the great questions humans ask.
  • Assessment:
    • All: Students must complete all readings and daily-work/commonplacing as well as oral exams.
    • Writing tutorial only: Each semester, students write two essays and complete two other written pieces and one semester project. (Students in both history and literature courses only create one project per semester.) At the conclusion of each semester, tutorial students participate in Defense Day by giving a brief presentation on one of their essays and responding to questions from the audience.
  • Books Needed: (Hard copies are required; recommended editions/translations are listed below)

  • Gwynne’s Grammar (ISBN: 9781984897961)

  • Beowulf — (Tolkien translation, ISBN: 9780544442788)

  • Song of Roland — (Recommended: Sayers translation, ISBN: 9780140440751)

  • Dante – Divine Comedy – (Recommended: Esolen translation, ISBNs listed below)
    • Inferno (ISBN: 9780345483577)
    • Purgatory (ISBN: 9780812971255)
    • Paradise (ISBN: 9780812977264)
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Tolkien translation, ISBN: 9780358652977)
  • Chaucer — Canterbury Tales (Recommended: Coghill translation, ISBN: 9780140424386)
  • Spenser — The Faerie Queene, Book 1 (Recommended: Maynard editor, ISBN: 9781885767394)
  • Shakespeare — Henry V (Recommended: Folger edition, ISBN: 9780743484879)
  • Optional, but highly recommended: Green, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table – Puffin Classics, ISBN: ‎ 9780141321011 – We will not be reading this formally, but we will go through a unit on Arthurian legend at the start of class; if you would like to follow along, this is the book I will be using. It will also be handy for reference for both Medieval Literature and Medieval History. (As an added bonus, Green was an Inkling, along with Lewis and Tolkien.)