ENGL 438 - Medieval Masculinities

5 credit hours

This course uses contemporary literary theory to investigate the category of the masculine in the Middle Ages. The class engages both chivalric and courtly love texts, as well as texts that understand the masculine as a category in need of more severe demarcation (such as The Letters of Abelard and Heloise). Because masculinity cannot be understood without its relation to notions of the feminine, the class also engages those texts that read the categories as inter-dependent.