Teaching & Learning Guide for: Teaching and Studying the Middle English Romance: New Directions, Affiliations, and Pleasures of the Text
Authors: Clifton Nicole 
Published: December 2007

Author's Introduction

Middle English romance has often (and unfairly) been dismissed as pedestrian, inferior to Old French romance, and worthy of the ridicule it received at Chaucer's hands. Yet that very ridicule shows how important it was to literary creation; there is no point in satirizing a genre with no currency. Middle English romance not only provides a context for the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Malory, it also provides action‐filled stories with complex themes and structure, well worth attention from scholars, and fun to read in the classroom.

Author Recommends

Secondary

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, ed. Roberta Kreuger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Essays on medieval romance from a wide variety of traditions and periods; a good way to get a sense of how Middle English romance relates to Continental romance.

Pulp Fictions of Medieval England, ed. Nicola McDonald (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).

A collection of essays on Middle English ‘popular’ romances, many of which are discussed in ‘Teaching and Studying the Middle English Romance’.

Cooper, Helen, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

A magesterial book on romance motifs as English authors develop them from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance.

Crane, Susan, Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo‐Norman and Middle English Literature (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986).

Crane discusses romances created in England, whether in English or in Anglo‐Norman, and their distinctive treatment of romance tropes.

Pearsall, Derek, ‘The Development of Middle English Romance’, Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965): 91–116.

An influential assessment of the genre.

Primary

Alliterative Morte Darthur.

Alliterative romance; part of the Arthurian tradition; close affinities to chronicle. Available through TEAMS (see below).

Amis and Amiloun.

Tail‐rhyme romance, sometimes considered in the ‘secular hagiography’ sub‐group of romance: the testing of two friends. Includes a forward heroine. A story popular in many European languages. Available through TEAMS (see below). Alternate edition: Amys and Amylioun, ed. Françoise Le Saux (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1993).

Floris and Blauncheflur.

Couplet romance; unusual in focusing on children and merchants, rather than on knights. Popular in many European languages. Begins imperfect in all English MSS. Available through TEAMS (see below).

King Horn.

Probably the oldest ME romance still extant. Various versions, including a ballad form. Available through TEAMS (see below).

Sir Launfal.

One of the ME lais, also belonging to the Arthurian tradition. Launfal is an impoverished knight with a fairy mistress. Based on one of Marie de France's lais, but less courtly in outlook. Available through TEAMS (see below).

Ywain and Gawain.

An translation of Chrétien's Yvain, shortened and adapted to an English audience: for example, Arthur is more decisive, and characters know more law. Available through TEAMS (see below). Alternate edition: Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell of Gales, The Anturs of Arther, eds. Maldwyn Mills and Malcolm Andrew, Everyman's Library (London: J. M. Dent, 1992).

Online Materials

TEAMS Middle English Texts:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmsmenu.htm

The Auchinleck Manuscript:

http://www.nls.uk/auchinleck

Chaucer selections read with Middle English pronunciation:

http://academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/audio_index.html

The Middle English Dictionary:

http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med

Images of Guy of Warwick in medieval and later incarnations:

http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/GUY.HTM

The Camelot Project: texts and images associated with the Arthurian Legend. Images are nineteenth and early twentieth‐century paintings and illustrations; texts range from medieval into the twentieth century.

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm

Sample Syllabus

Sample Syllabus #1: Middle English Romances Canonical and Anonymous

This course focuses on the thematic and other connections between traditional/anonymous romances and those by known authors. While the readings connect in various ways, the units are more or less interchangeable and can be approached in any order. Each could take one or two weeks; the longer time is suggested for undergraduates. The course could stop with these units, or go on in various ways: for example, with attention to manuscripts, by looking at other texts that appear in the same manuscripts; or to the study of related genres, such as dream visions or holy legends; or to source material, particularly the classical tradition. In a Chaucer course, one or two units could replace work on individual Canterbury Tales. In a survey of Middle English literature, Unit One or Unit Five might lead to other types of dream vision (Piers Plowman, for example); Unit Four might precede or follow other narratives of testing (such as saints’ lives); Unit Six could represent the Alliterative Revival.

Unit 1: Frame stories and narratorial conventions

Primary reading: Confessio Amantis, the prologue; Prologue to Chaucer's Clerk's Tale; beginning of Henryson's Testament of Cresseid; prologues to Sir Tristrem, Of Arthour and of Merlin, and Kyng Alisaunder.

Secondary reading: Clifton, Nicole, ‘Teaching and Studying the Middle English Romance’.

http://www.literature‐compass.com/viewpoint.asp?section=1&ref=389

Unit 2: Loathly Ladies

Primary reading: Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale; Gower's Tale of Florent; The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell.

Secondary reading: Echard, Sian, ‘House Arrest: Modern Archives, Medieval Manuscripts’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 185–210.

Unit 3: Other worlds and their rulers

Primary reading: Sir Orfeo; Sir Launfal; Chaucer's Merchant's Tale; Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice

Secondary reading: Falk, Oren, ‘The Son of Orfeo: Kingship and Compromise in a Middle English Romance’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000): 247–74.

Unit 4: ‘Floating in a boat’: the hero(ine) who endures

Primary reading: Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale; Gower's Appolonius of Tyre; Emaré.

Secondary reading: Cooper, Helen, ‘Providence and the Sea: “No Tackle, Sail, nor Mast”’, chapter two of The English Romance in Time.

Unit 5: Ghastly visions

Primary reading: The Awnters of Arthur at the Terne Wathelene; Gower's Rosiphelee; Saint Patrick's Purgatory.

Secondary reading: Robson, Margaret, ‘From Beyond the Grave: Darkness at Noon in the Awntyrs off Arthure’, The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, eds. Ad Putter and Jane Gilbert, Longman Medieval and Renaissance Library (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000), 219–36.

Unit 6: Arthur(s)

Reading: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; selections from the Alliterative Morte Arthure; review Awnters, Wedding and Sir Launfal.

Secondary reading: Sweeney, Mickey, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Making Meaning from Magic’, Mediaevalia 23 (2002): 137–57.

Unit 7: Classical romance

Reading: Chaucer's Knight's Tale; review Gower's Appolonius of Tyre; selections from Kyng Alisaunder.

Secondary reading: Bullón‐Fernández, María, Fathers and Daughters in Gower's Confessio Amantis (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), chapter two: ‘Redeeming Daughters: Thaise, Peronelle, and Constance’, 42–101.

Sample Syllabus #2: The Auchinleck Manuscript

This course is designed for a graduate class but could be adapted for undergraduates.

Focusing on Middle English romance and closely related genres such as the saint's life, this seminar deals with the ways manuscript context influences literary interpretation of medieval English texts. All primary readings are from the Auchinleck Manuscript (c.1330–40, earliest source for 8 Middle English romances; it contains 17 romances and 27 other items), using the on‐line edition at <http://www.nls.uk/auchinleck>. The course includes attention to manuscript layout and design, and how these physical aspects affect understanding of literary issues. Students will consider theories of editing manuscripts, using various editions of the romance Sir Orfeo, and the influence of editors’ choices on literary interpretation and criticism.

Most of us are accustomed to approaching even medieval texts in the same way we apprehend a modern book: as a discrete text, appearing alone, except perhaps for apparatus (notes, glossary) relating directly to that text. But most extant medieval works appear in manuscripts termed miscellanies – only recently have scholars begun to consider that perhaps these are more like anthologies, or even more carefully planned than that, with thematic relationships among the individual texts. With its impressive range of works – 44 items are extant, and at least six have been lost – Auchinleck has long appeared to be a library in miniature. Recent interest in manuscript context, however, invites re‐examination of this important manuscript; the publication, in 2003, of the on‐line edition makes this possible at the classroom level.

The on‐line edition both reproduces all folia of the manuscript and provides a transcription of each page. Such on‐line editions greatly expand possibilities for both research and teaching. All of the Auchinleck texts have, as well, appeared in conventional editions, some in multiple editions over the last hundred and forty years, which makes it possible to trace changing editorial practices.

While all texts can be read on‐line, it may be advisable to choose texts that are available in inexpensive classroom editions, such as the TEAMS editions, since students often like to have bound copies of texts, and printing out a text such as Guy of Warwick takes a lot of time and paper. Therefore, teachers may prefer to present the tail‐rhyme Guy, which appears in the TEAMS series, rather than the couplet Guy, which is available only from EETS.

Themes (possible paper and discussion topics):

didacticism

nation‐building

identity

marriage

religion, conversion

madness

magic

martyrdom

sacrifice

usurpation

incest

resistance/rebellion

right belief vs. recreantise

Bibliography for Middle English Seminar: Auchinleck Manuscript (Edinburgh, Advocates 19.2.1)

A. Secondary Works

Calkin, Siobhain Bly. ‘Saracens and English Christian Identity in Seyne Katerine and Seynt Mergrete’. Saracens and the Making of English Identity: The Auchinleck Manuscript. New York, NY: Routledge, 2005. 133–66.

Christianson, C. Paul. ‘Evidence for the Study of London's Late Medieval Manuscript‐Book Trade’. Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475. Eds. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 87–108.

Clifton, Nicole. ‘The Function of Childhood in Amis and Amiloun’. Mediaevalia 22 (Fall 1998): 35–57.

Clifton, Nicole. ‘Of Arthour and of Merlin as Medieval Children's Literature’. Arthuriana 13 (2002): 9–22.

Clifton, Nicole. ‘The Seven Sages of Rome, Children's Literature, and the Auchinleck Manuscript’. Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005. 185–201.

Clifton, Nicole. ‘Teaching and Studying the Middle English Romance: The Pleasures of the Text’. Literature Compass 1 (May 2004), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2004.00074.x. http://www.blackwell‐compass.com/subject/literature/article_view?article_id=lico_articles_bsl074.

Hanna, Ralph. ‘Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript’. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies. Ed. Derek Pearsall. York: York Medieval Press, 2000. 91–102.

Hanna, Ralph. London Literature, 1300–1380. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005.

Loomis, Laura Hibbard. ‘The Auchinleck Manuscript and a Possible London Bookshop of 1330–40’. PMLA 57 (1942): 595–627.

Moffatt, Douglas and Vincent McCarren. ‘A Bibliographical Essay on Editing Methods and Authorial and Scribal Intention’. A Guide to Editing Middle English. Ann Arbor, MI: U of Michigan P, 1998. 25–57.

Parkes, M. B. ‘The Literacy of the Laity’. Scribes, Scripts, and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts. London: Hambleton Press, 1991. 275–97. Rpt. from The Mediaeval World. Literature and Western Civilization, vol. 2, ed. Daiches and Thorlby. London: Aldus Books, 1973.

Rouse, Robert. ‘The Romance of English Identity’. The Idea of Anglo‐Saxon England in Middle English Romance. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005. 70–92.

Shonk, Timothy. ‘A Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript: Bookmen and Bookmaking in the Early Fourteenth Century’. Speculum 60 (1985): 71–91.

Wiggins, Alison. ‘Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe? The Advantages of Whole‐Data Analysis and Electronic Texts’. Medium Ævum 73 (2004): 10–26.

B. Editions and Reviews of ‘Sir Orfeo’ (in chronological order)

Oscar Zielke. Sir Orfeo: Ein englisches Feenmärchen aus dem Mitteralter mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen. Breslau: Wilhelm Koebner, 1880. 86–115.

Thomas C. Rumble. The Breton Lays in Middle English. Ashmole MS. Detroit, MI: Wayne State UP, 1965. xii–ix, 207–26.

Loomis, Roger Sherman. ‘Rreview of The Breton Lays in Middle English’. Speculum 41 (1966): 366–8.

Bliss, A. J. Sir Orfeo. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1966.

D’Ardenne, S. R. T. O. ‘Review of Sir Orfeo, ed. A. J. Bliss’. The Review of English Studies n.s. 8 (1957): 57–9.

A. C. Gibbs. Middle English Romances. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1967. 33–4, 84–103.

Davies, R. T. ‘Review of Middle English Romances (and other texts)’. Modern Language Review 64 (1969): 132–3.

Thomas J. Garbaty. Medieval English Literature. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1984. 349–64.

Elaine Treharne. Old and Middle English: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 465–77.

Focus Questions

How do Chaucer's references to Arthur (III.857, 882, 1089) and Lancelot (VII.3212) compare to treatments of these characters in romances focusing on Arthur's court?

Diagram the structure of a romance, and think about the ways that structure influences plot and theme (and vice versa). For example, a quest romance usually has a circular, there‐and‐back‐again structure; does the hero revisit places or repeat experiences, on his way home, that reflect elements from the journey out? What role do such repetitions play in creating the world view of the romance?

How does Chaucer (or Gower, or the Gawain‐poet) structure their romances? Do they use or re‐shape structural elements of popular romance, or do they borrow from the classical tradition?

Read a non‐romance text that appears in the same manuscript as a romance. What sort of relationship can you imagine between the two texts? Is one a corrective to the other? Do they deal with similar themes but from different ideological viewpoints? Do they seem to address different audiences? How might a reader reconcile their presence in the same manuscript, without assuming that it is simply an unrelated group of texts?