The Anglistik I Basismodul is split across two semesters. The first
semester covers Old English language and literature, from ca. 500–ca.
1200, and the second Middle English language and literature up to ca.
1500. The medieval period is defined by being othered
and opposed to our ‘modern’ world, and its literature and language can
seem foreign and challenging when first encountered. This Basic Module
gives students the opportunity to work with a wide variety of texts from
the early and late medieval period, in order to explore the very
different voices of medieval authors ranging from Geoffrey Chaucer to
the anonymous Deor poet. It also aims to equip
students with the analytical skills, the language skills, the
paleographical understanding, and the contextual knowledge that they
will need to succeed in more advanced medieval English
seminars. Across the two semesters, students are
asked to engage closely with texts in their original contexts, which
includes looking closely at manuscripts, translating from Old and Middle
English, and thinking about different literary interpretations of texts
from radically different cultures. In the first semester, we will focus
on Ælfric’s Life of Saint Edmund, the
poem Deor, and the travel
catalogue Wonders of the East. In the second
semester, we will look at The Owl and the
Nightingale, The Book of Margery Kempe,
and the ‘General Prologue’ to The Canterbury
Tales