ENL 4218 Fumo Spring 2021

What the novel is to us moderns, the romance was to medieval readers: the most accommodating and widely registered forum of fictional expression. The corpus of medieval English romance includes finely wrought masterpieces as well as pulp fiction; it embraces the sublime as well as the absurd, and most everything in between. In this course we will become acquainted with the imaginative and stylistic range of the romance genre in medieval England, with a focus on those stories and traditions that have most resonated over time. A first substantial segment of the course will be devoted to the "matter of Britain", i.e., the resilient romance tradition of King Arthur and his knights, which to a large extent defines our modern apprehension of the Middle Ages. We will then consider the "matter of England," which follows the adventures of homegrown knightly heroes as imbued by folktale patterns. Finally, we will explore diverse thought-worlds and locales in romances that afford a glimpse of faerie land and other sites of cultural difference and exchange. No prior experience with Middle English language or literature is expected, but a willingness to engage with texts in the original language, with the help of translation aids, is important.