FRS 002A —
Sec. 001 —
(2 units) — CRN 45494 — W 4:10-6:00pm — 25 Wellman
The Origins of Romantic Love: Knights, Ladies, Sex, and Sinners
in the Middle Ages
Instructor: Winder McConnell, Department of German and
Russian, College
of Letters and Science
Description: The seminar will examine the roots of
romantic love
with the rise of the troubadors in the High Middle Ages (ca.
1150-1250). We will
consider what the emergence of this phenomenon meant to a highly
stratified society
based on class structure and the dogma of the Church. Topics to be
discussed include:
Where did romantic love begin? (Greece, Rome, North Africa?); The
French troubadors
and the German Minnesänger (singers of love songs); Love and Marriage in
the High Middle Ages (they don’t “go together like a
horse and carriage!”);
Amor and eros in the High Middle Ages; The Tristan and Isolde story
(Gottfried’s
version of ca. 1210 and Wagner’s opera); Romantic love and a) the Church,
b) the State, c) the family, d) the individual; Romantic love and the advent of
individualism in Europe.
Format: The seminar will meet once a week for
approximately two
hours. In addition, students will be required to set aside ca. two-and-a-half
hours to view a film and participate in a discussion to follow. Students will
be required to read Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan,
available in translation
by A. T. Hatto in Penguin Books. I will provide handouts of texts on
the subject
matter from medieval sources. Grading: will be based on
an oral report (20%), a written paper (60%) and on class
participation (20%).
About
the Instructor:
Professor McConnell was born in Belfast, Ireland. His alma mater is
McGill University,
Montreal, where he took joint honors in History and German. He
received his M.A.
and Ph.D. in Medieval German Literature from the University of
Kansas. He taught
at a Gymnasium (High School) in Germany, Stanford University, and the
Johns Hopkins
University before coming to UC Davis in 1978. He has published extensively in
the area of Germanic heroic epic and courtly romance, and is
particularly interested
in the application of Jungian psychology to literary analysis.
Professor McConnell
is a recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Heinrich-Heine-Universität
Düsseldorf. He is Chairman of the Department of German and
Russian and Director
of the Medieval Studies Program.