ENL 3210-0001 Fall 2024 - Bates

The Legends of King Arthur and the Round Table have long burst past the courts of England and into the rest of the world, with texts written in German, Dutch, and French. And with this comes many different types of knights and characters including the African Moriaen, Muslim Palamedes, and the female knight Silence. Alongside these knights are a variety of women who both contributed to the creation of these texts and play roles within the story as lovers, queens, and sorceresses. The course will start with a quick look into early Arthurian traditions such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Brut before moving into the romance tradition of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes. These along with The Romance of Silence and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale will guide us as we engage with the different roles of woman: lover, author, and knight. Afterwards we will turn to the Grail Cycle to begin our discussion of race with characters such as the African King Feirefiz and the Black Knight Moriaen. We will then turn to the Alliterative Morte Arthure and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur to explore not only the ending of Arthur but conquest, religion, and race through the stories of the Non-Christian Priamus and Palamedes.