Oppressive religious moralizing. Restrictive gender and social norms. Rigid class-based society. Limits of all kinds are often assumed to be central to everyday life in the Middle Ages. Yet were such limits really so firmly in place? Is that the way things really were in Europe between 400 and 1600? As a challenge to such assumptions, this course will examine the fluidity of boundaries often thought to confine medieval thought, behavior and social practices. By investigating how literature from this period portrays myth, magic, and mayhem, students will gain new insight into how individuals constructed, viewed, and challenged limits on the mind, body, and community. Indeed, some of the most unexpected moments in the texts we will read—fart jokes, cannibalism, incest —reveal attitudes that differ from, run parallel to, and bring into question many of those we hold today. By the end of the course, students will not only have a better sense of medieval literature, but also an understanding of how such works reflect everyday life through the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance and beyond. Texts might include: Andreas, Judith, Juliana, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Play Called the Four PP, Ralph Roister Doister, and Mankind. Also works by: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory, Margery Kemp, and William Shakespeare.