Painting: Edmund Blair Leighton, 'Godspeed'

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English 555/755-01 Topics

Arthurian Literature


Course Syllabus



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Spring Semester 2012
MWF 11:00 - 11:50, Grubbs 312
Pittsburg State University
Instructor:  Dr. K. Nichols
E-Mail:  knichols11@cox.net







INDEX



Contexts Report (Written and Oral)

Due: Monday, 2/13

Length: 4 pages (typed, double-spaced), plus Works Cited page (7-10 online sources), and
10 minute oral report on your assigned day. Written report must be handed in BEFORE the oral report is given.

Grading: Undergrad. written and oral report--10 % of final grade; grad. student report--5% of final grade,
based on focus/organization, substantive content, accuracy and clarity of summarized material, and grammar.


Topic: Each student will be assigned a different topic. Browse the categories listed on Arthurian Literature and Art: Celtic and Medieval (online) for topics that interest you. If you see a good topic not listed below, get permission from your instructor to do that topic.


  • Historical Arthur--was he real?
  • History/fictional histories of the invasions of ancient Briton (by Romans, Saxons, etc.)
  • Legendary background of Merlin
  • Celtic goddess of sovereignty, the Loathly Lady, and Guenivere
  • Celtic origins of Morgana and the Ladies of the Lake and other enchantresses
  • Celtic origins of Gawain and other knights as solar heroes
  • Celtic and Christian Origins of the Holy Grail
  • The Grail Knights: Percival, Gawain, Lancelot, Galahad
  • The Fisher King and the Grail Kings
  • Courtly love
  • Chivalry
  • Everyday lives of medieval women
  • Everyday lives of knights
  • Unconventional "real" medieval women (Heloise; Eleanor; Beguines; Troubedors, etc.)
  • Medieval everyday life: Village and castle
  • The Death of Arthur--tomb, Avalon, Glastonbury

This assignment requires that you bring together and SYNTHESIZE 7-10 online sources from our class webpage Arthurian Literature and Art: Celtic and Medieval (online). After you have studied your sources, you will draw a conclusion about your topic. That conclusion will be the thesis around which your paper will be organized. Those sources should be listed alphabetically (by author's last name) on a separate page. Include author, title, date you accessed the online source, and online address. (See MLA directions for citing online sources.) However, unlike MLA style, you will NUMBER each source and insert that number (in parenthesis) at the end of the summarized/paraphrased/quoted material in your main text.


Since most of this paper will consist of summary and paraphrase (occasional short quotes are acceptable also), it is crucial that you following these basic rules:


AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
  • Summaries and paraphrases must be in language VERY DIFFERENT than the original.
  • Quotations must use the EXACT SAME language of the original (and be enclosed in quotation marks).
  • A source must be cited for both summaries and paraphrases, as well as for quotations.


See also: Focus/Organization and MLA Style Documentation and Typing Directions.



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Artwork Report

Due: 3/26

Length: 3-4 typed pages, plus images of selected art (maybe 3 more pages) and a separate Works Cited page listing primary and secondary sources.

Grading: Undergrad. report--10 % of final grade; grad. student report--5% of final grade,
based on focus/organization, substantive content, accuracy and clarity of summarized material, and grammar.


Topics: Select 3 Arthurian artworks on a common theme, character, or episode/scene--perhaps "chivalry" or "Ladies of the Lake" or "Merlin" or "Grail scenes" or the "Guinevere-Lancelot love story" or the "death of King Arthur," etc. Compare and contrast the interpretations offered by each of the artistic treatments. The Arthurian artwork to be used in your paper can be found at the following online sites: Arthurian Literature and Art: Celtic and Medieval, and Arthurian Literature and Art: Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and Arthurian Legends Illustrated.


Include copies of your selected images integrated into the paper, if you know how to do that, or add them together to form a separate Appendix at the end of the paper. List the artist and title under each image, but make sure you refer to the artist and title in the main text itself. If you have an appendix, after your first reference to a painting, insert a short parenthetical statement like this: (See Appendix.). (I can run off copies of the images in my office, if needed.) Be prepared to share some of your choices and insights with the rest of the class.


  • Analyzing Artwork: What moment or aspect of the story seems to have particularly attracted the artist's attention? Why? What makes the artistic treatment effective? Look at separate compositional elements of the image: What objects/figures/actions/details are emphasized/de-emphasized through color or size or placement in the foreground/middleground/background of the picture? What are some other distinctive features of the image? What mood or emotion is conveyed? How? Does the image adapt or change the literary text on which it is based? Is the artist's interpretation highlighting a particular aspect of the story/scene or adding something to the story/scene? What?

NOTE: For examples of art analysis, consult several of the essays analyzing the artistic
treatments of the "La Belle Dame sans Merci" and "The Lady of Shalott" on the
Poems and Paintings: Romantic/Victorian web page.


See also: Focus/Organization and MLA Style Documentation and Typing Directions.



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Literary Analysis Paper

Due: Monday, 04/30

Length: 6-7 typed pages, plus Works Cited page listing 3 primary and 1 secondary source (scholarly article) used. (NOTE: For graduate students, 2 scholarly sources.)

Grading: Undergrad. paper--20 % of final grade; grad. student paper--15% of final grade, based on substantive content, insight into your material, focus and organization, quality and appropriateness of your evidence, documentation, grammar.


Topics: Pick one of the following.

  • Discuss the changing conceptions of the character of Arthur or of Merlin. Include at least the following three versions: pre-Malory, Malory, and Tennyson. How does one author's development of your character differ from another author's? What elements are the same? How does each author relate the character to the larger themes and conflicts of his/her text? How do the different concerns of different eras affect the way the authors imagine your character? Does one author emphasize certain aspects of that character and his/her situation more than the other author did? Why? Do they use different methods of portraying "character"?

  • To what extent do Malory and Tennyson develop the following reading of the ending of the King Arthur story--that politics, not adultery, destroys the Round Table ideal? Provide evidence to support your position.

  • Although condemned by Arthur's court (and some readers), Guenivere is usually presented, at least some of the time, as a three-dimensional, complex ("round") character with whom the authors at least partially, if not wholly, sympathize. Consider her as a Malory and post-Malory character.

  • Compare-contrast the treatments of the adulterous love themes in Malory (Guenivere, Lancelot, King Arthur) and in Bedier (Tristran, Isolde, King Mark). Is sexual passion celebrated, condemned, or treated with ambivalence? Are readers encouraged to view the matter from the king's perspective or the lovers' perspectives? Are their love stories presented in an amoral or immoral context? Are suffering and death the punishment or defeat of their illicit love or the means to an ultimate romantic fulfillment? Which story seems more shaped by Christian values rather than pagan concerns? How do the love stories comment, directly or indirectly, on the kind of kingdoms associated with the kingly figures in each case?

  • Discuss the enchantresses (Viviene/Nimue, Morgan le Fay, Lady of the Lake) as remnants or later earthly embodiments of the mythic-supernatural Celtic feminine divine in conflict with the later Christian values of the monks and religious scribes who tried to "Christianize" the pagan materials. Did they succeed? Include pre-Malory, Malory, and post-Malory versions.


See also: Focus/Organization and MLA Style Documentation and Typing Directions.



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Extra Grad. Student Paper

Due: Week 13.

Length: 9-11 typed pages, plus separate Works Cited page listing primary and secondary sources.

Grading: 30% of final grade, based on substantive content, insight into your material, focus and organization, quality and appropriateness of your evidence, documentation, grammar.


Topics: Select one of the following topics and write a documented paper in which you develop your own thesis related to an Arthurian topic and cite evidence from your primary texts. Also weave into your paper material from several secondary sources (scholarly article or a chapter in a scholarly book). Think of the scholarly articles as sources you can agree or disagree with. What do they add to your discussion? What can you add to their discussion? In other words, carry on a "dialogue" with your sources while you argue for your own reading of your primary texts.

Links to online scholarly articles on Chrétien and for the Green Knight author are available at the following online sites: Arthurian Literature and Art: Celtic and Medieval; for T.S. Eliot, here are some resources: Arthurian Literature and Art: Romantic, Victorian, Modern; and for the "lost generation" authors (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner) and for T.S. Eliot, consult this page: Jazz Age Culture: Authors. Or, you may find books or additional articles in Axe Library (see the MLA Bibliography online database). Documentation should be based on MLA Style.


Pick one of these topics:

  • The Character of Gawain. Read "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell," and Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale," and review Malory's treatment of Gawain. Compare-contrast their treatments of the Gawain character. What are his strong points and weak points? Why does he fail as a Grail knight, a role for which he might have been a likely candidate early in his literary career? Include 3 scholarly articles in your discussion.

  • The significance of the Grail quest. Read "Peredur" in The Mabinogion and Tennyson's "Lancelot and Elaine" and "The Holy Grail" in Idylls of the King, and review Malory's treatment of the Grail quest. Discuss the irony or paradox of the Grail quest being both the ultimate/highest expression of the Round Table ideals AND (at the same time) the necessary cause of the defeat of the Round Table ideal. Include 3 scholarly articles in your discussion.

  • The ironic use of the Grail/Fisher King/Wasteland motifs in modernist literature. Read "Peredur" in The Mabinogion, major selections (about 20 pp.) from Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance (online), and one of the following modernist texts: T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, or Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. Depending on the modernist text you pick, also read the following selection from King Arthur in America, eds., Lupack and Lupack (copy in library or in professor's office): for Eliot, Ch. 2, pp. 112-119; for Fitzgerald, Ch. 3, pp. 135-154; for Hemingway, Ch. 3, pp. 154-169. Include 2 scholarly articles in your discussion.


See also: Focus/Organization and MLA Style Documentation and Typing Directions.



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Organization and Focus

  • Introduction: Introductions in short papers should be short--maybe 3-4 sentences long. Begin with some general statement about your topic (if you are going to write about the grail, get the words "grail" and "Arthur" and "literature" somewhere in the opening sentence). Perhaps provide some pertinent background, or explain why there have been problems with the topic or even disagreements about it, or maybe suggest why that topic is so important in Arthurian studies and literature.

    End the paragraph with your thesis. In this case, your thesis will be the overall conclusion you have drawn about your topic now that you have finished studying what the experts have to say on it. Remember that your thesis is what the rest of the paper will be about.

NOTE: Most or perhaps all of the introduction will be your own writing,
but it is OK to include a short paraphrase/quotation, properly cited.


  • Body of Paper: Sub-divide your thesis/conclusion into 3-4 sub-points (since you can't talk about everything at once). Those sub-points will form the topic sentences for the body paragraphs--what you have to say about that sub-point, your own writing, the point you want to make. Each topic sentence should be followed by lots of specific details/examples/quotations. from your sources, as well as your explanation/analysis of that information (the "well-developed paragraph").

    WRITING TIP: Arrange your sub-points according to the Order of Climax--begin with your second-best sub-point followed by your weakest sub-point and then work your way up to your best sub-point at the end so that the paper finishes on a strong note.

NOTE: I hate skimpy paragraphs that are only 1-2 sentences long;
put some meat on those bones--another 5-8 sentences of details
and examples and explanations, please!)


  • Conclusion: Conclusions in short papers should be short--maybe 3-4 sentences long. Begin the concluding paragraph with a re-statement of your thesis/conclusion--but in language very different than was used in the introduction. In a couple more sentences, refer to your topic as a whole-- why it is significant and worth studying, for instance, or finally, what it all adds up to.

NOTE: In a short paper, do not repeat your sub-points--much too repetitious.



MLA Style Documentation

Use standard in-text citation (author and page), and put the source information on a separate bibliography page (labeled "Works Cited"). Follow MLA directions.


See this short summary of MLA style: MLA Formatting and Style Guide, created by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab. Scroll down the page to find a long list of links for in-text citation and bibliographies, including how to do electronic sources.


Also check MLA Style: MLA Style: Frequently Asked Questions.


For more detailed information on MLA style, consult a hardcopy of the "official" MLA Handbook.



Typing Directions:

Use Times New Roman font, size 11 or 12. Double-space everything--no exceptions. Include one inch margins on all sides. Put your last name and page number in top-right corner (1/2 inch from top)


On the first page, in the top-left corner, put your name, your instructor's name, the class name and number, and the date. Below that, in the center of page, add a title (and sub-title, if needed).


See an MLA formatted paper: Paper Format--Example .


Put all documentation on a separate page and follow MLA directions.






Return to Nichols Home page



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Painting top of page:
"Godspeed" by Edmund Blair Leighton


Background images by Devonshire Designs