Mister D|z World

The Age of Elizabeth

Recommended Sources

PRIMARY SOURCES     By the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, the printing press was stimulating an explosion of literary work. There are many thousands of acceptable original source readings for this period; this list merely suggests a few of the more obvious possibilities.

Francois Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel

Miguel Cervantes. Don Quixote

William Shakespeare, the Plays*

Bernal Diaz. The Conquest of New Spain

Miguel de Montaigne. Essays

Niccolo Machiavelli. The Prince

Erasmus. In Praise of Folly

Giovanni Boccaccio. The Decameron

Voltaire. Candide

* Reading Shakespeare is encouraged, but it must a play you have not previously read, in classes or on your own.

FICTION

Antonia Fraser. Mary, Queen of Scots Irving Stone. The Agony and the Ecstasy (re. Michalangelo) Hermann Hesse. Narcissus and Goldmund John Banville. Doctor Copernicus Margaret George. The Autobiography of Henry VIII Jack Dann. The Memory Cathedral: a Secret History of Leonardo da Vinci Bolt. A Man for All Seasons (re. Thomas More and Henry VIII) Barry Unsworth. Sacred Hunger (a novel of the slave trade)

NON-FICTION

Daniel J. Boorstin. The Discoverers Part VII "The American Surprise" Part VIII "Sea Paths to Everywhere" Fernand Braudel. The Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II

FILM

A Man for All Seasons Mary, Queen of Scots 1492: the Conquest of Paradise Anne of the Thousand Days The Mission

ORIGINAL SOURCE READING

• The Bible
• Beowulf
• The Canterbury Tales , Geoffrey Chaucer
• La Morte D’Artur (the Death of Arthur), Sir Thomas Malory
• The Divine Comedy (esp. The Inferno), Dante Alighieri
• Confessions, St. Augustine
• The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio

FICTION

• Italo Calvino. The Nonexistent Knight, The Cloven Viscount
• Barry Unsworth. Morality Play
• Sigrid Undset. The Master of Hestviken (tetrology)
• Robert Louis Stevenson. Black Arrow
• Costain, T. B. The Black Rose, The Silver Chalice, The Last Plantagenets
• Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose
• Sir Walter Scott. Ivanhoe
• T.H. White. The Once and Future King
• Mary Stewart. The Crystal Cave, The Last Enchantment, The Hollow Hills
• K. Cushman. Catherine, Called Birdy
• R. Westall. The Cats of Seroster
• Stephen Grundy. Atilla’s Treasure
• Jane Smiley. The Greenlanders
• Mark Twain. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
• John Steinbeck. The Acts of King Arthur
• Issac Bashevis Singer. Satan in Goray, Stories for Children
• Nigel Tranter. The Wallace (and others)

NONFICTION

• A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman
• Eleanor of Aquitaine, Amy Kelly
• Medieval Village, Manor, and Monastery, Coulton, G. G.
• The Age of Faith, Durant, Will and Ariel
• The Age of the Cathedrals, Georges Duby
• Women and Marriage in Medieval Society, Georges Duby
• Medieval Callings, Jacques Le Goff, ed.
• The Medieval Reader, Norman Cantor
• Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White, Jr.

FILM

With the exception of those films marked with an asterix, these movies are suggested mainly as sources for historical details (such as costume, weaponry, housing, mannerisms, etc.) that might be useful as background for your project, especially in writing historical fiction.

Henry V, Ladyhawke, Lionheart, The Lion in Winter, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Prince and the Pauper, The Return of Martin Guerre, Robin and Marion, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Name of the Rose, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Seventh Seal, The Vikings, Braveheart

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