Spring 2006 Courses

English 309: Literature and Visual Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Tarnoff)

M/W/F 2:20- 3:20 pm, CAR 105

This course will trace the rediscovery of Ovid’s Metamorphoses -- a poem about the rough magic that gives rise to ordinary things, about sex between gods and men (and women), and about life as an endless cycle of transformations – by late medieval and early modern English writers and artists.  We will consider how Ovid’s narrative inspired encounters between literary and other visual and/or iconographic forms and will examine works of poetry and prose in connection with images of illuminated manuscripts, funerary arts, decorated beds, textiles (including embroidery by female powerbrokers such as Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots), statues, and architectural monuments. This course will include a class trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

In addition to the Metamorphoses, we will read works by Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, and John Milton.

Requirements:  2 essays, a group presentation, and a final project.

Spring 2006 Course Listings