Great Books for Middle Ages

[Osmosis Mom]

Which ones have your student enjoyed (endured!) the most?

[Michelle in AL]

My kids haven't read them yet, but I've enjoyed The Once and Future King by T.H. White. It may not be a "Great" Book though.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Simon Armitage gets a thumbs up for shock factor.

I've begun Macbeth and so far I really like it.

[Linda in NM]

Adam of the Road, some of the Henle books, and anything by Sutcliffe...

[Osmosis Mom]

Thanks for the input. I have on my shelves Beowulf, some Shakespeare, and The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun.

BTW has anyone read and lked Don Quixote? Is that Middle ages? How hard is that book?

[Linda in NM]

I was a graduate student in comparative literature a million years ago, and I HAD to read it. I didn't like it--I might like it better as an adult...Chaucer is wonderful, but you have to be really careful with some of the tales...

[Jane in NC]

Inferno and Canterbury Tales. These were my sons favorites when we did the Middle Ages. There were parts of An Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Bede) that he also enjoyed, but he is particularly drawn to All Things Medieval. The Mabinogion and The Prince are worthwhile reading.

If you include Shakespeare on your list, I would recommend the Bolingbroke cycle: Richard II, Henry IV (parts I & II), Henry V. Granted, the histories are my favorite Shakespearean plays, but I find these four tell quite a fascinating story.

Don Quixote was my son's favorite book of this school year, followed by Moby Dick. We included DQ as part of the Late Renaissance/Early Modern period.

Happy reading,
Jane

[Linda in NM]

Ah...I didn't like Moby Dick, either :-)...I'm more of a Jane Austin kind of person--not sure what I was doing roaming around in the Middle Ages (my concentration was Middle English Lit--I read Beowulf in the original--good grief--and Old High German). Ah, those were the days...

[Michelle in AL]

Isn't Don Quixote supposed to be a spoof on chivalry? If so that would be a great book to read after the books on chivalry.

The theme of the middle ages lit class I'm teaching is "how then shall we live." We'll be reading and looking at what makes a good leader/society in the following books:
Beowulf
The Once and Future King
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Utopia by Thomas More

I would include Canterbury Tales if I wasn't teaching a class since it has some objectionable material.

[Karin]

Isn't Don Quixote supposed to be a spoof on chivalry? If so that would be a great book to read after the books on chivalry.

.


Yes. I read it without reading any books on chivalry, and decided that I would have probably found it a lot funnier if I'd read some of those first. Bear in mind that the Spanish Christian attitudes of the time toward the Moors at that time does come up a number of times in this book. The novel takes place around the time that someone was trying to get rid of all the Moors and was making it hard even for Muslims who had converted to Christianity. There is also an account of a Muslim woman converting to Christianity in the book.

I didn't find most of it funny.

[Michelle in AL]

:iagree:
Yikes. I hadn't read it. Doesn't sound funny to me either.