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• Centre for Medieval History
• Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
• School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies

Aims

Although there are in Ireland other M.Phil. courses in particular areas of medieval studies, what distinguishes this one is its multidisciplinary nature: contributors from a wide range of areas: Art History, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Music, Philosophy, are involved at some level. This interdisciplinary M.Phil. offers students the opportunity to acquire both a broad knowledge of the main cultural trends that characterize the Middle Ages at a European level and a more specialized study of at least three areas of their choice. It seeks to equip students with the basic technical tools (palaeography, codicology, linguistic skills) for interrogating primary medieval documents; to broaden their awareness of the complexities of medieval culture, with particular emphases on its social, philosophical, literary and linguistic aspects; and to deepen their knowledge of specific topics through the writing of assessed essays and a dissertation. Given its interdisciplinary nature, such an M.Phil. promotes collaboration between scholars in various fields. In these ways the M.Phil. in Medieval Language, Literature and Culture aims to produce well-qualified graduates, with both a broad and a specialized knowledge of the Middle Ages, who are in a position to undertake original research on medieval topics.

Courses

In the Michaelmas term students take four core courses: Research Methodology; Medieval Thought; Medieval Culture and Society; and a language chosen from: Elementary Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, Middle English, Italian, Medieval German, Medieval French, Old Irish.
In the Hilary and Trinity terms students follow two options. Currently these include: Chaucer; The Englishhyng of ‘fyn amor’; Women in Medieval Drama; Language and Genre; Varieties of Comedy in Dante and Boccaccio; ‘Wild’ Women in Medieval Liteature; Old English Heroic Poetry; Old English Prose; Arthurian Heroes; Chivalry in Life and Literature; Perceptions of Islam; Late Medieval French Poetry; The Old French ‘récit bref’; Lovesong in Medieval Europe; Music in Medieval Ireland; Medieval Philosophy; Introduction to Early Medieval Ireland; Vergil in the Middle Ages; Text and Image; Old Irish poetry; Early Irish Law.