• Discuss the tension between pagan and Christian elements in Beowulf, demonstrating how the
poem takes on a certain composite character while remaining unified by its overarching religious
message.
• Discuss Beowulf as social commentary, especially in light of its possible criticisms of AngloSaxon culture and society.
• Discuss the ideals of kingship in Beowulf, taking care to note both positive and negative examples
of rulership.
• Offer a comparison between the poem Beowulf and one of its film adaptations, taking care to note
how certain characters or themes have been reworked to reach a more contemporary audience. I
recommend either Sturla Gunnarson’s Beowulf & Grendel (2005) or Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf
(2007), though there are many other adaptations out there.
• Discuss the marriage of the Germanic heroic ethos and Christian doctrine in a poem like “The
Dream of the Rood.”
• Discuss the role of the female characters in Sir Lanval.
• Discuss the complexity of Gawain’s character, especially with respect to his potential as the
chivalric hero, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
• Discuss the contrasting spheres/realms of the court and the wilderness in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight as they relate to the conflict between the Christian and pagan worlds.
• Offer a comparison between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and one of its film adaptations,
noting how certain themes have been reworked, changed, or discarded in order to create new and
compelling points of emphasis within the narrative. There is an interesting version that has
recently appeared: David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021). There is a kitschy and much looser
adaptation under the title of Sword of the Valiant (1984), directed by Stephen Weeks, if you like
80’s films with a good helping of cheese.
• Discuss Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as a form of estates satire, perhaps focusing on his views
about a particular estate.
• Discuss Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” as social commentary.
• Discuss the notion of privetee in “The Miller’s Tale.”
• Discuss Chaucer’s Wife of Bath as a proto-feminist character, negative female stereotype, or
somewhere in between.
• Compare and contrast the role of female “sovereignty” in Lanval and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”
