This course will explore the idea of the monstrous in the English middle ages (approximately 1100 to 1500) and will look at various ways of representing monsters, hybrids, and the unnatural. We will concentrate on medieval ideas about the body, the line between sacred and profane, and the role of the monstrous in the rise of the English as a nation, a culture, and a language. While our work will center on close readings of key texts (including Beowulf, the Dream of the Rood, the Siege of Jerusalem, the Morte d’Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Canterbury Tales, the grail legends, and Spenser’s Faerie Queene) we will also make room for the study of new media materials (such as graphic novels, animated films and websites devoted to our subject), retellings, modern analogues and theoretical works.

Requirements: Two five-page papers and a final exam.