No other period of literature has so continuously and popularly riveted the imaginations of writers and filmmakers as the Middle Ages. One recent literary historian has claimed that the images and ideas we associate with the Middle Ages are essentially the invention of twentieth century medieval scholars who saw the period through the lenses of their own personal interests and values-among them J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. But medieval writers also created images to serve their own interests and values and those of their patrons. We will read some landmark essays by medievalists who have defined the Middle Ages for the twentieth century-C. S. Lewis on courtly love, J. R. R. Tolkien on epic and romance, Mikhail Bakhtin on carnival, and (less well known outside medieval studies but no less influential) D. W. Robertson, Jr. on religious values. Against these essays we will set some major works by medieval writers with aggressive polemical agendas of their own: Andreas Capellanus's The Art of Courtly Love, Chretien de Troyes' Yvain the Knight with the Lion, St. Augustine's On Christian Doctrine, selections from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In the second half of the course students will explore the "afterlife" of medieval literature in popular fiction and film of their own choosing. Choices might range from Camelot (the musical), to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Marian Zimmerman Bradley's Mists of Avalon to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. The course will be run as a colloquium in which students work in small groups on selected topics and present their work orally to the group. Each student will submit a final paper of 15-20 pages on a topic that represents a culmination of the student's work and interests over the course of the semester. Format: discussion/colloquium. Requirements: three or four group oral presentations and a final paper of 15-20 pages. Prerequisites: one or more 300-level literature courses. Enrollment limit: 15 (expected 15). Preference to English and other literature majors and qualified non-majors. (Pre-1700 or Criticism)