LIT-368 "The Medium is the Message": Reading Poetry in Print & Manuscript, 1300-1600.

In this course, we will read medieval and renaissance poetry not in tidy modern editions, but in its original contexts in manuscripts and early print—where doodles cover up transcription errors, love lyrics jostle storeroom inventories, and readers pass judgement in the margins. We will study how books were compiled, annotated, censored and even smuggled, and how these practices shaped literary production and reception. We will not only read Chaucer, Lydgate, Wyatt, Spenser, & others, but will also produce editions and manuscripts of our own to discover: is the medium really the message?

Maximum Enrollment

Standard Course (40)

Credits

1

Prerequisite

A 200-level course in literature.

Offered

Spring

Notes

(History or Intermedia).