The University of Birmingham (UBIR) • MA IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES

An in-depth discussion on the Loathly Lady tradition and trope found in medieval romances and examples on the Wife of Bath, Sir Gawain, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle and Sir Orfeo. We also look at what the Loathly lady is and whay she represents.

An indepth discussion on what fairies were and what they meant to a medieval audience, as well as their function within the text especially how they reflect on courtly love and court life.

an in-depth look at William Morris and the house of the wolfings

an in depth look at medieval gender and theory used to interpret it

For the purpose of this essay, I will discuss the magical objects of a brass horse, the ring, mirror and sword that appear in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Squire’s Tale and the celebrated magic girdle in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, before analytically considering in detail their individual roles within the text.

For the purpose of this essay, I will examine The Rune Poem, Elene and ‘Christ II’, three surviving texts that take runes as a subject, in order to discuss the function of runes and their contributions to interpretation.

For the purpose of this essay, with a specific focus on the importance of language, I will consider and analyse the various forms that “England” acquired when the issue of nationhood was imagined by inhabitants of the medieval West, and whether a nation is something that other people define and recognise or something that individuals within a nation perceive.

the purpose of this essay will be to examine the narrative techniques that Bede uses in his account of Cædmon and to consider whether it is possible to distinguish ‘history’ from ‘story’.

For the purpose of this essay, it will be considered whether the study of the Middle Ages is by nature interdisciplinary through sharing practices with other research departments, or whether interdisciplinarity is simply, for example, history with research elements borrowed from literary theory.

‘[E]ven as we learn how to synthesize modern reading with medieval graphics through digitization, we must also inhabit the medieval book by holding it, turning its pages, and reading as our medieval predecessors once did’ (Maura Nolan, ‘Medieval Habit, Modern Sensation’, p. 476). Critically reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of the digitization of medieval manuscripts (and early prints), making reference to specific examples.