Anguish and Desire in Premodern British Literature

This survey of premodern British literature will introduce graduate students to major premodern vernacular texts - their sources, genres, influence, and interpretative problems - through the related themes of anguish and desire. For what did early English writers and their personas long? How are the emotional pain and trauma of unfulfilled longing articulated and resolved? How useful might modern Trauma Theory, Affective Hermeneutics, and Phenomenology be in studying early literature? We will examine epic, lyric and wisdom poetry; Romance and mystical texts; hagiography, Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Arthurian legend.