TEXTBOOK:
Sarah Lawall, ed., The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces:  The Western Tradition (7th ed.), Volume 1.

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  A broad consideration of masterpieces of world literature written before 1800 by authors such as Homer, Virgil, Marie de France, Boccaccio, Rabelais, and Cervantes.  This course meets the "PLW" requirements in the General Education curriculum.

GOALS.  As my goals in this course,

1. I want you to enjoy the freshness, vitality, and strangeness of early European literature;
2. I want you to become comfortable and confident as a reader of early European literature;
3. I want you to expand your "cultural literacy" by learning some of the important and influential details of the European literary past;
4. I want you to acquire a basic familiarity with the body of literature that has long been acknowledged as "classic" in our culture;
5. I want you to reconstruct and ponder the values of the past cultures that produced this "classic" body of literature;
6. I want you to question and critique those values in terms of how they have formed our own cultural values, good and bad, today; and
7. I want you to experience some of the ways in which even very old literature can relate to our contemporary experience and provide much-needed perspective on that experience.

1. a mid-term exam,
2. two short papers (4-5 typewritten pages), and
3. a final exam.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of the graded assignments in this class. Class discussion constitutes important, useful preparation for the course's exams and papers. If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day's contribution to your preparation (since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of discussion for a missed class meeting -- even if you get notes from someone). If, however, you positively must miss a class, I will expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared -- without excuses -- to the next class meeting.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bray 125A. My office hours this summer will be by appointment only. Please feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment to see me. You may also contact me by e-mail (through SOCS) or by leaving a message for me in my box at the English department offices (Bray 108).

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES.  An e-mail discussion list has been created for this course. To subscribe, send the message, "subscribe LIT-L your name" from your personal e-mail account to listproc@list.TCNJ.EDU.  Be sure to send the message from your own personal e-mail address -- not from one of the generic e-mail accounts on campus (such as "nobody@tcnj.edu" or "student@tcnj.edu"). After you have subscribed to the list, you may circulate messages to all members of the list just by sending what you want to circulate to LIT-L@list.TCNJ.EDU.  I will provide you with discussion questions and background information here on the web to help you as you do the reading and prepare for class each day.  I encourage you to use the e-mail discussion list to share your response to each day's discussion questions with your classmates in order to foster on-line discussion before -- and after -- class.  The more you discuss the literature that we are studying, the better prepared you will be for the graded assignments in class.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  (This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.)

Date	Assignment
M June 28	Introductions The Bible: Psalm 8, Psalm 19, Psalm 23, Psalm 104, and Psalm 137 Sappho (all selections in anthology)
T June 29	Gilgamesh Homer, Odyssey, Books I-IV
W June 30	Homer, Odyssey, Books V-XII
R July 1	Homer, Odyssey, Books XIII-XIV, XVI-XVIII, XXI-XXIII
M July 5	NO CLASS (July 4th holiday).  A make-up class is scheduled on Friday, July 16.
T July 6	Aeschylus, Oresteia
W July 7	Euripides, Medea Aristophanes, Lysistrata
R July 8	Plautus, Pseudolus Virgil, Aeneid, Books I-II (selections in anthology)
F July 9	PAPER 1 DUE in my box by 4:30 p.m. (NO CLASS)
M July 12	Virgil, Aeneid, Books IV-XII (selections in anthology)
T July 13	Ovid, Metamorphoses (all selections in anthology)
W July 14	MID-TERM EXAM Medieval Lyrics: Read the poems by Walahfrid Strabo, Hildegard of Bingen, Bertran de Born, Arnaut Daniel, Walther von der Vogelweide, Alfonso X, Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Christine de Pizan, and Charles d'Orleans
R July 15	Song of Roland (all selections in anthology)
F July 16	Make-up class for July 5 Marie de France, Lanval and Laüstic Medieval Tales: Four Fabliaux and The Trial of Renard
M July 19	Dante, Inferno, Cantos I-V
T July 20	Dante, Inferno, Cantos VI-XVIII
W July 21	Dante, Inferno, Cantos XXI-XXVIII, XXXI-XXXIV
R July 22	Boccaccio, Decameron (all selections in anthology) Malory, Morte Darthur (all selections in anthology)
F July 23	PAPER 2 DUE in my box by 4:30 p.m. (NO CLASS)
M July 26	Petrarch (all selections in anthology) Marguerite de Navarre, Heptameron (all selections in anthology)
T July 27	Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (all selections in anthology) Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I, Prologue and Chapters 1-5
W July 28	Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part I, Chapter 7, to Part II, Chapter 74 (selections in anthology)
R July 29	FINAL EXAM