GERST 1132

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  • Schedule of Classes - April 13, 2026 10:10AM EDT

GERST 1132
FWS: Epic, Romance, and Fate: Medieval Germanic Literature

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

A dragon-slayer wins a kingdom—then loses everything to betrayal. A young fool wanders into King Arthur’s court and embarks on a quest for the Holy Grail. The Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, two masterpieces of medieval German literature, shaped the Western imagination long before Tolkien or Wagner. In this seminar, we will ask what these violent, strange, and moving texts reveal about nobility, loyalty, men, women, and moral growth. Close reading will be our method: slowing down to notice how a text thinks through imagery, structure, and silence. Essay assignments progress from descriptive observation to interpretive argument, with revision and peer review central to the process. No prior knowledge of the Middle Ages is required—only a willingness to read carefully.


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Syllabi: none

  •   FWS Session. 

  • 3 Credits GradeNoAud

  •  2451 GERST 1132   SEM 101

  •  
    • MW
    • Aug 24 - Dec 7, 2026

    • Groundwater-Schuldt, W

  • Instruction Mode: In Person

    For more information about First-Year Writing Seminars, see the Knight Institute website at http://knight.as.cornell.edu/.