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Reading for Week Eight: Guillaume de Palerne
For this week please read to the end of Guillaume de Palerne.
Reading for Week Seven: Guillaume de Palerne
For this week please read Guillaume de Palerne from the beginning to line 4560.
Reading for Week Six: Melion
Melion is an anonymous lay written in the French Picard dialect in the late 12th or 13th centuries. Although I have suggested that, like Biclarel, Melion is a reworking of Bisclavret, the truth is more complicated. Since we don’t know the composition date of Melion it is possible that Melion predates Bisclavret. Additionally, there are substantial differences in the plot between Melion and Bisclavret, so that some scholars have suggested that the two are not strongly related. The standard scholarly conclusion has usually been that Melion and Bisclavret have a single source in common that Marie de France and the Melion author each adapted in different ways.
Reading from:
Hopkins, Amanda, trans. “Biclarel” in Melion and Biclarel: Two Old French Werwolf Lays. Ed. Amanda Hopkins. 2005, Print, The University of Liverpool.
Music:
Arden-Taylor, Paul. Medieval Dance Tunes Sequence.
Reading for Week Five: Biclarel
Biclarel is an anonymous romance from the fourteenth century. It is a reworking in French of the twelfth century Anglo-Norman Bisclavret by Marie de France. Biclarel is extracted from a longer work called Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait. Le Roman de Renart is a twelfth century retelling of collection of fables (most of which are best known to us today as Aesop’s fables), and Le Roman de Renart le Contrefait is a further reworking of that twelfth century collection. The author gives some autobiographical details in Renart le Contrefait: he was in his early 40s when he began the text and his late 60s or early seventies when he completed it in 1342. He claims that he began to write out of boredom, having left the church for a woman. As we can see is in Biclarel he seems to regret that choice, and his writing, not just Biclarel, demonstrates a notable streak of misogyny.
Reading from:
Hopkins, Amanda, trans. “Biclarel” in Melion and Biclarel: Two Old French Werwolf Lays. Ed. Amanda Hopkins. 2005, Print, The University of Liverpool.
Music:
Arden-Taylor, Paul. Medieval Dance Tunes Sequence.
Reading for Week Three: Selections From Topographia Hiberniae By Gerald Of Wales
Its title notwithstanding, Topography of Ireland written by Gerald of Wales in 1185-1188 is more concerned with history than it is with geography. It was popular and well received in ecclesiastical circles in the late twelfth century.
Please listen to this reading in preparation for week three of the Werewolves Course.
Reading from:
O'Meara, John J. The History and Topography of Ireland (topographia Hiberniae). By Gerald of Wales. Rev. ed. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities, 1982. Print. Dolmen Texts.
Music:
Arden-Taylor, Paul. Medieval Dance Tunes Sequence.
Reading for Week Three: Selections From Otia Imperialia By Gervase Of Tilbury
Otia Imperialia, or “Recreation for an Emperor” was written by Gervase of Tilbury in or after 1211 CE for Otto IV, the Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until 1215. It is part encyclopedia, part cosmography, part geography, and part history, as well as a Mirror of Princes (a genre of work intended for royalty to model good royal behaviour to them) and part simply an entertaining story book.
Please listen to this reading in preparation for week three of the Werewolves Course.
Reading from:
Banks, S. E., and J. W. Binns, eds. Otia Imperialia : Recreation for an Emperor. By Gervase of Tilbury. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002. Print. Oxford Medieval Texts. 813-815; 87-89.
Music:
Arden-Taylor, Paul. Medieval Dance Tunes Sequence.
Reading for Week Two: Selections from the Völsunga Saga
The Völsunga Saga is an Icelandic legendary saga, tracing the line of the Völsungs—that is, the descendents of King Völsung.
Völsung is the son of Rerir, the son of Sigi, the son of Odin. Völsung has two children we care about: a son named Sigmund and a daughter named Signy.
There are a few things that happen before the section we are reading for this course begins which may be useful to know.
Völsung’s daughter Signy married King Siggeir of the Geats, against her will. Siggeir attacks the Völsungs, kills Völsung and captures his ten sons. All of Völsung’s ten sons except for Sigmund are eaten by a monstrous she-wolf who might have been Siggeir’s mother as a werewolf but might not have been. Sigmund kills the wolf and escapes. Signy wants vengeance against Siggeir, but all of her sons with Siggeir are too cowardly so she decides to secretly have a son with Sigmund so that he will be of Völsung lineage on both sides and therefore better. This incestuously conceived son is Sinfjotli.
Our section begins with Sigmund and Sinfjotli preparing to seek vengeance against Siggeir, but Sigmund is unsure whether he can trust Sinfjotli’s courage.
Please listen to this reading in preparation for week two of the Werewolves Course.
You can find an electronic version of the text of the Völsunga Saga here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1152/1152-h/1152-h.htm. The corresponding sections to the selections I read is Chapter VIII.
Reading from:
“Völsunga Saga.” Trans. Larissa Tracy, in Primary Sources on Monsters: Demonstrare vol 2. Ed. Asa Simon Mittman and Marcus Hensel. ARC Humanities Press, 2018. 94-100.
Music:
Prokofiev, Sergei. Piano Sonata no. 7 in B-flat major "Stalingrad", Op. 83.
Reading for Week Two: Selections from the Táin Bó Cúailnge
The Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) is an Old Irish prose epic. The oldest version we have in writing dates from about the 12th century, though it is set in about the 1st century in pre-Christian Ireland and probably originates in the eighth century or earlier.
The central plot of the Táin involves Queen Medb of Connacht, who tries to steal the prized bull of Ulster, Donn Cuailnge, the Brown. Before our selection begins we learn that the Ulster men are all afflicted by birth-pangs for nine days, part of a curse placed on them by the fairy Macha. Only Cú Chulainn is unafflicted, so he fights alone against the armies of Connacht and their allies of Munster, Leinster, and Meath—in other words all of Ireland except Ulster.
Cú Chulainn is a nickname. It means “Hound of Culann.” Cú Chulainn’s birth name is Sétanta, but in his youth he killed Culann’s fierce guard dog (in self-defence) and as restitution had to work as Culann’s dog himself.
Cú Chulainn is not technically a werewolf, since he does not transform into a wolf, or into any animal. He does, however, transform into a monstrous form in order to be more bestial in battle, and as such I think his story is interesting and relevant in the greater context of werewolves in the European Middle Ages.
Please listen to this reading in preparation for week two of the Werewolves Course.
You can find an English translation of the Táin here: http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/tain_faraday.pdf. The corresponding sections to the selections I read are p. 20-22 and p. 54-59.
Reading from:
“Táin Bó Cúailnge .” Trans. Larissa Tracy, in Primary Sources on Monsters: Demonstrare vol 2. Ed. Asa Simon Mittman and Marcus Hensel. ARC Humanities Press, 2018. 61-66.
Music:
Dvořák, Antonín. Symphony no. 7, Op. 70.