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Semester 1

Saints and Sinners: Voicing Belief, Doubt, and Dissent in Medieval English Literature (ENLI10245)

Course Website

http://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours

Subject

English Literature

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 English Literature courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we do not consider civilisation & other interdisciplinary courses, freshman seminars, writing/composition courses or film/cinema/media courses; visiting students who have taken multiple courses in literature in other languages, should have passed at least two courses in English Literature as well. **Please note that this course may incur additional costs to purchase core texts** **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course introduces students to a range of medieval literary texts that explore questions of religious faith and spirituality, and that challenge preconceived and simplistic notions of the relationship between Church, community, and culture in the period. While the medieval Church sought to impose a certain degree of dogmatic uniformity, the chosen texts suggest that it did not always function in a monolithic or rigidly coercive way. Instead, literature opened up a space in which doubts about doctrine were voiced, and assumptions about authority and hierarchy were open to question.

Course Description

This course introduces students to a range of medieval literary texts that explore questions of religious faith and spirituality, and that challenge preconceived and simplistic notions of the relationship between Church, community, and culture in the period. While the medieval Church sought to impose a certain degree of dogmatic uniformity, the chosen texts suggest that it did not always function in a monolithic or rigidly coercive way. Instead, literature opened up a space in which doubts about doctrine were voiced, and assumptions about authority and hierarchy were open to question. **The course primarily focuses on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English literature, and encompasses a wide range of literary forms, each of which explores different aspects of contemporary faith and spirituality. For instance, amongst the issues raised by the texts is the centrality of the Virgin Mary in medieval Catholic belief, and the significance of her perpetual virginity. In their treatment of Mary's sexuality, medieval texts are alive to the human even comic implications of her virginal state while still revering its theological import and emotional power. Another area of belief opened up by the texts, and one that may also seem remote to a modern readership, is the centrality of saints in medieval religion, and the reciprocal, even companionable relationship between the living and the dead that a belief in saints necessarily implies. Belief in saints enabled medieval Catholicism to provide its adherents with a source of comfort and consolation for the anxieties raised by loss, bereavement, and death. But literature also offered a forum in which writers could criticize and dissent from received ideas and sources of authority. Ecclesiastical figures found themselves subject to satirical attack in texts which sought to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the Church, and which in some instances even questioned its claims to power and authority.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on an English Literature exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one 3rd year English Literature course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed, and students will not be permitted to enrol in three 3rd year English Literature courses in the same semester at any time. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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