Postgraduate Course: Falling in Love in the Middle Ages (ENLI11075)

Course Outline
School	School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	20	ECTS Credits	10
Summary	This course examines a range of texts in diverse genres composed in medieval Europe from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, exploring how love, eroticism, and sexuality are portrayed and considering their aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical significance. Particular attention is given to the concept of courtly love and its development; the relationship between gender and desire; and the interplay between sacred and secular ideas of love.
Course description	Not entered

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered

Learning Outcomes
to introduce students to a variety of medieval prose and poetic texts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries composed in medieval Europe and Britain, including classical works by Dante and Chaucer, and also a number of lesser known texts - to introduce students to a diversity of medieval genres including 'theoretical' works about love; lyric poetry; prose romance; dream poetry; philosophical vision; 'mystical' writing; - to explore how the subject of human love manifests itself in the Middle Ages. In what ways are imaginative representations of eros culturally specific or culturally 'transcendent'? What exactly is the nature, and legacy, of medieval love? - By the end of the course, through close readings of chosen texts, students will understand a range of issue such as: the concept of courtly love and its development through time; the relationship between gender and desire (is love articulated differently by medieval women writers?; how are desiring women portrayed in literature?); the concept of the beloved woman; and the subject of medieval men who love); Dante's revolutionary concepts of love and the feminine; the interplay between sacred/religious and secular/profane ideas of desire, how different literary genres influence, or artistically shape, the representation of love (eg. romance; dream vision; lyric); the concept of 'emotion' and 'experience' in the Middle Ages, including the question of whether we can speak of desiring 'subjectivity' or 'selfhood' in these texts; and the question of how love is experienced in bodily or physical terms; the relationship between desire and writing