Not a survey in the historical sense, but an exploration of current issues and controversies. Literary works from a wide variety of genres (from drama and lyric to romance and dream vision) will be juxtaposed with both medieval and contemporary theoretical texts and with relevant critical essays to help us evaluate both the questions we ask of medieval texts and the answers we find. On the matter of "courtly love," for example, how do we "read" the gender roles and power politics encoded in typical relationships between the lady-on-a-pedestal and the servant-knight? On the subject of allegory, how do we measure the slippery negotiations between truth and Truth, between human words and God's Word? Requirements: several short ungraded writing exercises, and three 5- to 7-page papers. Prerequisite: English 101. (Criticism or Pre-1800)