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One of the most widely taught medieval English poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight still provides many challenges for teachers. What is the best way to explain to students its alliteration and unusual stanzaic form? Why does the poet begin with the fall of Troy? On what Arthurian tradition is the author drawing? Would the lady’s behavior have been conventional in the Middle Ages? Why does Arthur’s court laugh in the end—is the poem a comedy? In this volume, twenty-four teachers offer strategies for successfully presenting the perplexities of Sir Gawain in a variety of courses.
Like other books in the Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, Approaches to Teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is divided into two parts. Part 1, “Materials,” surveys materials useful to classroom instruction, such as translations, anthologies, reference works, and teaching aids. Part 2, “Approaches,” begins with background essays on teaching the poem within the traditions of romance, chivalry, courtly love, religion and law, and medieval aesthetics. The essays that follow discuss ways to include the poem, both in translation and in the original, in courses ranging from freshman composition to graduate seminars. A final section includes ideas that can be adapted to any class—from reading the poem aloud to sponsoring a medieval banquet.
This handbook was produced with the aim of providing students with an introduction to Old Irish literature as well as to the language. One of the notable Old Irish stories is used as the basic text. Examples of poems, and of the glosses, supplement it. All are thoroughly annotated. The grammatical information provided in these annotations is summarized in grammatical sections dealing with specific constructions and forms. The first fifty of these sections are descriptive; many of the same matters are discussed in the second fifty section from a historical point of view. A final glossary includes references to all words occurring in the texts. The apparatus was accordingly designed to permit a relatively easy approach to a very difficult language.
This handbook was written specifically for beginning students. It presents twenty-seven graded readings, each accompanied by a vocabulary and an explanation of grammatical details; the final chapter provides a sample of the Codex Argenteus. Among the readings, the first seven are in effect preliminary exercises. The remaining twenty readings represent the Gothic Bible and the Skeireins. The external history of the language is also outlined, as well as the elements of phonetics, and the essentials of phonologic and analogic change.
“What separates the Decameron from most of the canon is that it is fun to read,” says the editor in his preface to this volume. “Though its narrators sometimes weep, they laugh much more often.” Boccaccio’s highly teachable work is easily excerpted, and the essays in this collection describe stimulating ways to introduce these tales to undergraduates.
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