When the Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs writes of the relationship between consciousness and literary form, he identifies three primary narrative literary forms: tragedy, epic, and the novel. The romance disappears from this philosophical literary history, implicitly suggesting that the romance is a minor genre that sees a brief efflorescence in the middle ages and that romance so minor so as to be incapable of representing a philosophical relation between the self and the world. But romance was not only one of the most dominant narrative forms of the Middle Ages, it is also a powerful genre that continues to generate responses and reiterations. Rarely theorized or lionized, the romance is nevertheless the genre that is most productive of new matter and (according to its detractors) of pleasure. In this class, we will begin with the work that produces the material for an enduring body of romance, Geoffrey of Monmouth s History of the Kings of Britain. We then read two of the English works that demonstrate the endurance and capacity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's historical framework: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Le Morte D'Arthur. We then read Chaucer s Wife of Bath's Tale, Knight's Tale and Sir Thopas and theorize the history of romance in England in the middle ages. We proceed to read early modern English romances such as Spenser s Faerie Queen and an early modern English translation of one of the first novels, Miguel Cervantes' Don Quijote, which responds to the conventions of romance and explains to us romance s narrative pleasures. At this point, we will be capable of approaching later examples of romance revival as experienced romance readers. Possibilities for reading from later periods include Sir Walter Scot's historical novels, an American romance from Nathaniel Hawthorn, a work from the Harry Potter series or works by the notable Oxford medievalists C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. We will choose our final reading together.