Medieval Literature: Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer

Calendar

ses #	topics	key dates
1	The Courtly Love Tradition Introduction
2	Domination and Desire
3	Dolce Stil Nuovo	First reader response due
4	Ennobling Love: Sublimation and Subjection
5	Historical Background: Secular Politics	Presentations I
6	Historical Background: Church Politics	Presentations II
7	Florentine History and the The Divine Comedy
8	Epic and Romance	5-page write-up of oral presentation due
9	Moral Perversion and Linguistic Distortion
10	Confession and the Practice of Penitence
11	Nature and the Power of Love
12	Ecstatic Desire
13	Moral Cosmology	Second reader response due
14	Visions of the Ideal Society
15	The Ends of Language
16	The Plague of Language
17	Comedy and Tragedy
18	Rhetoric and Redemption
19	Historical Background: The Fourteenth-Century Renaissance in England	Presentations III
20	Britain and the Myth of Trojan Origins
21	Ricardian Politics	5-page write-up of oral presentation due
22	Free Will and Determinism
23	Mediators and Mediation	Mandatory re-write due
24	Multiplicity and Indeterminacy
25	Tragedy and Transcendence
26	What Is This Thing Called Love? Conclusion	Final paper due