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Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Medieval and Renaissance Literature

A journey through a thousand years of Western literature, from the heroic verse of Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied through Dante's Divine Comedy to Cervantes's Don Quixote and the plays of Shakespeare.

Wikimedia Commons · Domenico di Michelino · Public domain

60-Second Review

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A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

  1. Early Medieval Heroic Epic. From hagiography to Beowulf, Roland, and the Nibelungenlied: the heroic epic of the early Middle Ages.
  2. Courtly Romance and Arthurian Legend. Troubadours, Chrétien de Troyes, the Matter of Britain, Marie de France, and the Cid define courtly romance.
  3. Dante and the Divine Comedy. Dante's life, exile, and the Divine Comedy trace a journey from Hell through Purgatory to Paradise.
  4. Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer. Petrarch's sonnets, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales reshape vernacular narrative.
  5. Medieval Women's Voices. The Gawain poet, the mystic Margery Kempe, and Christine de Pizan mark late-medieval English and French letters.
  6. Renaissance Humanism in Italy and France. Humanism, Machiavelli, Ariosto, Tasso, Rabelais, and Montaigne remake literature across Italy and France.
  7. Cervantes and the Spanish Golden Age. Cervantes's Don Quixote and the comedia of Lope de Vega and Calderón crown the Spanish Golden Age.
  8. The English Renaissance: Spenser to Milton. From Spenser and Marlowe to Shakespeare, Jonson, and Milton, English literature reaches its Renaissance summit.

This is the starting point of Medieval and Renaissance Literature: you don't need any prior knowledge of this subject to begin.

Key points

Visual module map

1Early Medieval Heroic Epic
2Dante and the Divine Comedy
3Medieval Women's Voices
4Renaissance Humanism in Italy and France
5The English Renaissance: Spenser to Milton

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Final test

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Optional mini-games

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Review Flashcards

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Memory

Match each concept with its definition in as few attempts as possible.

Time Attack

Answer true or false statements before time runs out.

Chronological Order

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Lewis, C. S. (1936). The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Auerbach, E. (1946). Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Bern: A. Francke.
  • Curtius, E. R. (1948). European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Bern: A. Francke.
  • Burckhardt, J. (1860). The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Basel: Schweighauser.
  • Bloom, H. (1998). Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books.
  • Greenblatt, S. (2004). Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York: W. W. Norton.