2011-2012 Academic Year

European Medieval Literature (20106)

Degree/study: Degree in Humanities
Year:
3rd-4th
Term:
3rd
Number of ECTS credits:
5

Hours of student dedication: 125
Teaching language or languages: spanish
Teaching Staff
: Victoria Cirlot

1. Presentation of the subject

The Mystic Fable. Feminine writing and experience in the Middle Ages.

A study of the mystical medieval texts written by women between the 12th century, when this type of writing appeared, and the 14th century, both in Latin and in the vernacular languages. The course owes its name to the famous book by Michel de Certeau (La fable mystique), but instead of dealing with the mystic phenomenon from the 15th and 16th centuries, it will deal with its medieval antecedents, which constitute its germination period. Experience and subjectivity will be the constitutive elements of this genre that, against all odds, women will take into their hands, in a historical crossroads, which is the object of this course.

2. Competences to be attained

General competences

Specific competences

1.      Literary training based on the students' experience of otherness.

1.      The study of medieval Literature on the base of feminine mysticism will allow students to gain access to the construction of one of the fundamental textual corpora of the European literary tradition.

3. Contents

1. Spirituality in the 12th century: monastic reform and love to God.

2. The commentary of Song of Songs, by Saint Bernard, and the SanktTrudperter Hohelied.

3. The visions of Hildegard von Bingen.

4. The urban renaissance and the béguinage.

5.  The case of Angela de Foligno.

6. La luz fluyente de la divinidad, by Mechthild von Magdeburg.

7. Piety and devotion in iconography.

8. The work of Marguerite d'Oingt.

9. El espejo de las almas simples, by Marguerite Porete.

10. Reception of feminine Mysticism: Dante and Meister Eckhart.  

*The full version with the sections 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.