English 114: Introduction to Medieval Literature Spring 2015 First Essay Assignment

Essays are due by Thursday, April 16; they should be typed, double-spaced, and four to six pages long (±1400 words) in a 12-point font. Please submit them electronically to fgrady@umsl.edu.

In considering these topics, bear in mind that they are starting points, and that simply answering in sequence the questions below will not produce a good or even a coherent essay. Develop your own particular thesis, and be sure to support your argument through frequent and specific reference to the text. Please let at least one human being—one who knows the difference between “its” and “it’s”—proofread your essay before you hand it in.

1. Design your own topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that interests you in Mandeville’s Travels or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Provide me with a one-paragraph description of your topic no later than Monday, April 13. Feel free to consult with me in developing this topic; discussing it with your classmates is highly recommended, too.

2. Write a five- or six-page imitation of Mandeville's Travels. Describe your trip to a place you've never been before, some of the things to be seen there, and some of the things that happened to you on your travels. Weave your text out of other texts, as the author of the Travels did: borrow from other writers' accounts of your destination and from their adventures, and subtly insert yourself as a character/narrator. Don't bother to footnote, but do include a list of the sources from which you've borrowed. The key to success in this assignment will be capturing Sir John's style and tone, and remembering that you're writing less than a story but more than a set of directions.

or

Write an account of Northfield and environs that details its urban [!] legends and accounts for its unusual landmarks, using Sir John's account of the Holy Land as your model.

3. Mandeville’s Travels certainly seems to promote a tolerant attitude towards faiths other than the narrator’s own Catholicism. But it doesn’t seem to extend that attitude towards the Jews. Discuss the effect and the function of the text’s treatment of the Jews that Sir John “meets” during his “travels.”

4. Again, Mandeville’s Travels readily bestows credit on all sorts of non-Christian folk, from pagan princes to the dog-headed Cynocephales. But the objects of Sir John’s admiration all seem to be men: what role do women, dog-headed or not, play in Mandeville’s Travels?

5. The author of Mandeville’s Travels is faced with a problem of credibility in the writing of his book: that is, he has to convince his readers to believe in some outlandish stories and far-fetched claims. What strategies does he adopt in order to gain the confidence of, solicit the good will of, or otherwise seduce or browbeat his readers, so that those readers will take his text seriously?

6. Discuss the role(s) that the pentangle and the girdle play in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in the context of a thesis that you develop and defend about what/how/why they mean what they do. Favor me with a copy of this thesis, expressed in a few sentences, by Monday 4/13.

7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a great compare-and-contrast poem, because it seems to have (at least) two of everything: two courts, two holiday celebrations, two bargains, two important symbols (see above), two kinds of hunting, etc. Write an essay about parallels and contrasts and their structural and thematic importance in SGGK.

8. We learn at line 2456 of the 2530-line Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister and Gawain's aunt, has been responsible for putting the events of the poem in motion. This is typical behavior for Morgan in the Arthurian legends, but in this poem her appearance--or rather, her mention—raises another question. Does a revelation so late in the poem demonstrate how the courtly world tries to marginalize women and downplay their power, as some critics argue, or does it indicate that women are so powerful and disruptive to the chivalric order of things that they can't be excluded or hidden despite the best efforts of manly knights?

With this question in mind, write about the role of women in Sir Gawain.