Guido's Historia and Lydgate's Troy Book: Activities for Students

TROY
Activities for Guido's Historia and Lydgate's Troybook

1. Explore the links on the Guido's Historia page.

2. Read "Guido's Historia Destructionis Troiae: Free Will, Fate and Demons at Troy." This is my detailed discussion of Guido's Historia. You will need to read it to get a sense of what Guido is doing with the Troy story, because there is no section in the textbook on this topic.

3. Read through all the Activity questions before selecting Activities to work with. Notice that some of the Activities are quite easy and may only require reading one text, while others are far more difficult, and may require reading more than one text or doing online research plus reading texts.

Select Activities that interest you and are appropriate to the time you have to spend on them. You will not get a higher grade because you select more difficult Activities. Some Activities that are especially complex will offer double credit; if so, that will be stated in the Activity question. If you select the double credit option, you must write "double credit" on your Activity AND you must develop your Activity in more depth, in order to qualify for the double credit.

Select one or two of these Activities for this Area; make a copy of the Activity question to begin your response. Post your Activity to the Blackboard Guido Forum.

Read "Critic and poet: what Lydgate and Henryson did to Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" by C. David Benson and write a developed summary of the material. (This is especially interesting and useful if you plan to read Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and/or Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.)

Read "Astralscapes of the Emotions: Planets, Seasons, Passions, Actions," an essay on Guido's use of the stars to describe human events. Now comes the challenge: review either Homer's Iliad or Virgil's Aeneid and carefully consider how one or two of the characters are motivated--is it by gods? by fate? by destiny? by bad luck? by what? Compare the motivation in one of these epics to the astral motivation as explained by Guido.

Read and write a developed summary of Astrology in Medieval Europe. This sort of thinking got deeply intertwined with the story of Troy in Guido's Historia, and elements of astrological thinking show up in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and beyond.

Here is another complex and interesting essay that you may choose to read and summarize in depth if you are interested in ideas of history in the Troy tradition: "Boccaccio’s Teseida and The Destruction of Troy," by Dominique Battles.

And here is a detailed introduction to Lydgate's: TROY BOOK: edited by Robert Edwards. If you read this carefully and write a fully developed summary, you will learn more about the Troy tradition in the middle ages and earn up to fifty points.

If you are feeling philosophical and want to work for potential double credit, read "Guido's Historia Destructionis Troiae: Free Will, Fate and Demons at Troy." Then, look back at at least two of the Troy stories you have read and think about what caused the fall of Troy in each version and whether there was anything the Trojans could have done to prevent it. What? How? Discuss your ideas in detail, supporting them with examples from the Guido essay as well as the two Troy texts you have chosen to write about.

Go to Stupormundi.it: history and art related to Frederick II; English option. Examine the various pages and write a review of the site. Be sure to not only comment on the content, but on the style of presentation and how you liked or did not like it.

If you are interested in the crusades, go to Medieval Sourcebook: Philip de Novare: Les Gestes des Ciprois, The Crusade of Frederick II, 1228-29, a contemporary document, read it, and write a developed summary. Any interesting ideas you have about this text would be a welcome addition to the Activity.