Lecture 3
Professor Timothy H. Wilson
Department of English, University of Ottawa
English 2105 -- British Literature: Beginnings to 1700
A core course in the English Undergraduate Program at the University of Ottawa -- Summer 2020.
This is the third lecture: covering the historical and social context of Middle English Literature as well as the intellectual context of Middle English Literature, namely: the medieval synthesis of the traditions of Athens and Jerusalem.
The lecture closes with a close reading of Chaucer’s poem “Truth“ as exemplifying this medieval worldview.
Time Codes:
0:00 - Introduction
4:36 - Outline of Lecture
7:57 - Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1200)
15:10 - The 14th Century: The Black Death in Boccaccio’s Decameron
45:43 - The Medieval Synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem
58:36 - Stoicism
1:01:10 - The Medieval Cosmos: Ptolemaic Universe, Great Chain of Being, Three Orders of Society, Human as Microcosm
1:10:50