HONR 1130 - Between Epic and Romance

4 credit hours
In this course students read and study European, Middle Eastern, and/or Asian literary works composed between the 5th and the 15th centuries. As we read different literary texts, we will consider how and why they respond to or, alternatively, blur certain generic conventions that are tied to particular literary traditions and their predominant themes. Some of these themes raise fascinating questions about love, secular or religious, war, politics, and the like, which we will explore. We also will analyze how literary works construct or question notions of identity on the basis of gender and sexuality, nation, race or ethnic group, social status, or religious belief; and we will consider the tensions that often arise from different ways of understanding identity and their various configurations and intersections. Readings may include Dante’s Divine Comedy, selections from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Christine the Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies, the Epic of the Commander Dhat al-Himma, Usama bin Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation, selections of Arabic and Hebrew lyric poetry, the Japanese poets of Heian Court (e.g., Ono no Komachi or Izumi Shikibu), and/or the Chinese poets of Tang and Sung Dynasties, among others.