EN420: Medieval Studies: Myth and Legend

1997 was my last year studying at the University of Queensland, where I did my Medicine degree and my Arts degree and the Honours in Arts part time, then called a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts.

In trying to recall what else was going on, I’m pretty sure I did the RCIA and became a Catholic that Easter, and at some point that year was mad enough to go part time as a General Practitioner to become a medical adviser to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. We had four children, a relatively new house and with all the driving and trains to the city for the new job I have no idea how or why I was still studying English.

Otherwise what I was mainly doing was my dissertation under the loose and benevolent supervision of Dr Elizabeth Moores, but in second semester, while struggling to finish that beast, I also did this unit. After the brave and foolish decision to go straying into modern feminist lit the previous year, I got permission to go back to the medieval era by taking an undergraduate course, EN282, at postgraduate level.

The topics covered were fairly broad and avoided the topics covered in more usual medieval subjects, that is, Chaucer.

We looked at:

• Old English literature – Saints’ Lives, Maldon, Beowulf
• Old Icelandic – Viking Romances, Prose Edda
• Gawain Poet – Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Malory

She didn’t follow my orderly list as above though, we meandered backwards and forwards a lot. There were lectures and tutorials most weeks.

Assessment was actually quite extensive. We had a small essay in the first week looking at the difference between Myth and Legend. There was a factual test after two months that I think was ungraded. She set a major essay due well before the end of semester and a two hour examination.

I remember a lot of reading and especially the Malory texts which were something in which to get really bogged down.

For some reason I went to the case of Buddy Holly to define a Legend as opposed to Myth.