ASSIGNMENTS

Choose one of the following possible subjects as the matter of your assingment. Remember that it should be about ten pages long and will include citation of the bibliographical elements (classnotes included) you have used for its composition.

ASSIGNMENT 1A
EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL EPIC

1.      The Germanic people and the Medieval European Epic.
2.      The role of women in European epic.
3.      Epic and Christianity.
4.      The encounter with the other in the epic field: Vikings, rivals and Moors.
5.      Epic and the hierarchical society: lords and lieges in prefeudal and feudal societies. The epic hero.
6.      Main features of Anglo-Saxon Epic in comparison to the Continental tradition: Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon.

ASSIGNMENT 1B
EUROPEAN TALE TELLING

1.      The Oriental tradition in the tale telling of Europe.
2.      Genres in tale telling: courtly romances, Breton lays, folk tales, fabliaux, saints' legend, miracle of the Virgin, exempla, sermons, and beast fables.
3.      The ribald tradition of humourous tales: the fabliau.
4.      The grain theft and craddle trick in the French fabliaux, Chaucer, and Boccaccio.
5.      The tale collections of Europe: from the single tale to the novelle and the novel.

ASSIGNMENT 2
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE AND ITS RELATIONS WITH THE CONTINENTAL MILIEU

1.      "Petrarchan" and "Petrarchist": the development on Petrachism in Italy and Europe.
2.      Petrarchist women writers: the encroached voice?
3.      The Renaissance sonnet along time and place: Renaissance Europe.
4.      The pensive and self-divided self: the Petrarchan poet in love.
5.   Themes and conventions of English Renaissance in connection with the European context.
6.   Shakespeare as a poet and Petrachism.
7.     Il Canzoniere and the ensuing collections of sonnets as autobiography.
8.   "The dear she". The image of women in the Renaissance poetry of  England and Europe.
9.    Reality and desire: idealism and erotism in Renaissance poetry.
10.  Religious implications in Il Canzoniere and other poetical sequences.
11.  The cultural background to the English and European Renaissances.
12.  Italian influence and italianate literature in English Renaissance.

ASSIGNMENT 3
ELIZABETHAN DRAMA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN DRAMA OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

1.      English and Spanish dramas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: dramas of the nation.
2.      Theatre as a commercial undertaking: the companies.
3.      The physical  shape of Spanish and English stages compared. 
4.      Love, frienship, family and honour in A Woman Killed with Kindness and El castigo sin venganza.
5.   Themes and conventions of English and Spanish dramas.
6.   Parallel lives: the developments of English and Spanish dramas of the Renaissence.
7.     The French and Italian dramas in their relation with English drama.
8.   The periphery: Renaissance drama in Portugal, The Netherlands, Germany...
9.    A theory of genres for English and Spanish dramas.
10.  A theory of genres for European drama?
11.  Women and drama in England and the Continent.
12.  The classical roots of English drama.
13.  Power relations in A Woman Killed with Kindness and El castigo sin venganza.
14.  A general survey of the English drama in relation to the Continent.