Room 272

For more on this course, please read this post. (This post refers to an earlier version of this course taught primarily to undergraduates)

Contact Information

Dr. John Halbrooks

Office Hours: 10:00-11:00 TR, 5:00-6:00 M, and by appointment

Office: Humanities 272

Email: jvhalbrooks@usouthal.edu

Class Blog: http://jvhalbrooks.wordpress.com/

Course Description

The title of the course serves as an adequate description. We will begin with a slow, careful reading of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. From there we will move backwards in time to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), a strange but tremendously influential text. In order to gauge Geoffrey’s influence, we will read excerpts from two redactions of the Historia from the French and English traditions. In addition to imagined histories, the Arthurian narrative also opened up into a vast complex of interrelated romances in practically every European language. We will sample the earliest and possibly the best of these romances, those by the twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes. We will finish the semester by leapfrogging to the twentieth century and T. H. White’s novel The Once and Future King, a text that acts as a kind of humanist commentary on the entire Arthurian tradition, especially Malory. In order to supplement and complicate our discussions we will read from a range of secondary material.

Required Texts

Chrétien de Troyes. Arthurian Romances. William W. Kibler, ed. and trans. London: Penguin, 1991; reprinted 2004.

Geoffrey of Monmouth. The History of the Kings of Britain. Lewis Thorpe, ed. and trans. London: Penguin, 1966; reprinted often.

Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte Darthur: A Norton Critical Edition. Stephen H. A. Shepherd, ed. New York: Norton, 2004.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Simon Armitage, trans.  New York: Norton, 2008.

White, T. H. The Once and Future King. New York: Ace Books, 1996 (orig. pub. by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965 as compilation of earlier volumes).

Other readings will be available through electronic reserve at the library.

Course Requirements and Grading

1. Course blog. You should check the blog (http://jvhalbrooks.wordpress.com) several times a week. I will post assignments, response questions, reminders, and changes to the syllabus on the blog. Also, this is where you will post your topics for discussion (see below).

2. Short paper (25%). This paper will be a short (5-7 pages) study of some specific aspect of Malory. More information on this assignment will appear on the blog soon. Due 14 September.

3. Seminar paper (50%). This will be your major project for the semester. The final draft will be due at the final class meeting, but we will be working on this project in multiple stages.

4. Presentations (15%). As you make progress on your seminar papers, you will present your research to the class, probably three times during the course of the semester.

5. Class participation (10%). This portion of your grade will include your contribution to class discussion. Also, each week I will post on the blog a “topics-of-discussion” forum for the week’s readings. You will use the “comments” section of the post to present an idea for class discussion as well as a brief explanation as to why the topic should interest us. The topic should arise from specific observations that you glean from your reading of the text. I will bring these topics to class for our discussion. This is a seminar rather than a lecture course; therefore, its success will depend largely upon your contributions in class.

Attendance Policy

You are required to attend all class meetings.

Disabilities

All syllabi at the University are required to include the following statement: “If you have a specific disability that qualifies you for academic accommodations, please notify the professor and provide certification from Disability Services. (OSSS is located in Room 270 of the Student Center; 460-7212).”

Plagiarism

Plagiarism will result in failure of the class after one warning. If you are unsure about what constitutes plagiarism, please ask me.

Electronic Devices

All cell phones must be switched off before class begins. You may not “text message” or catch up on your email in class under any circumstances. Students who do not comply with this policy will be asked to leave and counted absent for the day.

Course Schedule

(Specific readings will partly depend on our progress each week. I will also supplement the primary readings with additional secondary sources. This schedule is, therefore, subject to change. I will let you know either in class or on the blog which specific portions of the text to read for each class meeting.)

Week 1 (17 August): Introduction to the course.

Week 2 (24 August): Malory.

Week 3 (31 August): Malory. Richard Waswo, “The History that Literature Makes,” on electronic reserve.

7 September: Labor Day Holiday.

Week 4 (14 September): Malory.

Week 5 (21 September): Malory.

Week 6 (28 September): Malory.

Week 7 (5 October): Malory.

Week 8 (12 October): Geoffrey of Monmouth. Excerpts from Layamon and Wace.

Week 9 (19 October): Chrétien: Yvain.

Week 10 (26 October): Chrétien: Lancelot.

Week 11 (2 November): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Week 12 (9 November): Chrétien: Perceval.

Week 13 (16 November): T. H. White.

Week 14 (23 November): T. H. White.

Week 15 (30 November): T. H. White.