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Down with Dante and Chaucer? Navigating a Great Books Curriculum as a Medievalist

Chapter of: The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist(pp. 289–304)

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TitleDown with Dante and Chaucer? Navigating a Great Books Curriculum as a Medievalist
ContributorSarah Harlan-Haughey(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0205.1.26
Landing pagehttps://punctumbooks.com/titles/the-ballad-of-the-lone-medievalist/
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
CopyrightHarlan-Haughey, Sarah
Publisherpunctum books
Published on2018-08-23
Long abstractWhen I accepted my job as a joint hire between an English de-partment and an Honors College that used a fairly conventional Great Books curriculum, I was excited to have a job and to be teaching the classics as well as my own research interests. But I quickly learned that there are some dangers and stressors in be-ing the only person who works on anything remotely premod-ern in a four-semester curriculum that dwells a year on ancient Roman and Greek classics, hurtles over the Middle Ages after two or three short weeks with Dante and Chaucer, and comes to rest heavily in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. I quickly found myself saying things that surprised and even scared my colleagues as we discussed our curriculum and book lists every year with hopes of improving or innovating the hundred years’ culture war that is a Great Books curriculum.1 “Why not teach a saga instead of Dante?” I might say. Or: “Can we replace Chaucer with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or even Piers Plowman?” “No, I do not feel comfortable lecturing on the political climate that led to the creation of Virgil’s Aeneid — that’s why we need a classicist.” “Can’t we add another medieval text and remove The Golden Ass? Marie de France can cover a lot of the same ground.” And so on. My colleagues have come to look upon my perpetual war for a non-standardized view of the Middle Ages, for readings from saints, weirdos, and outliers with exasperated good humor and a quick vote to maintain the status quo: a week of the Inferno, a week of Chaucer’s greatest hits. Done, and done. I never thought I’d argue the things I have in this job as strongly as I have argued them.
Page rangepp. 289–304
Print length16 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors