An Honors version of the introductory survey of some significant developments in the literature, history, philosophy, art, and music of Western Europe, with emphasis on Italy, France, England and Germany, from the end of the Ancient World to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The course will examine selected landmarks of art and culture in an attempt to understand the character and contributions of the European mind and spirit in the Medieval period and the Renaissance. This is the formative period from which the contemporary Europe we know today has grown, and much that is central to the European ethos can be studied in its embryonic stages in the literature, art, and culture of this period. From ca. A.D. 500 to around 1600, Europe moved from the status of a chaotic and prostrate social and economic system that was a cultural backwater compared to neighboring civilizations, to the threshold of global hegemony. We will try to understand how this came about by examining the history of the times through literature, such as The Song of Roland, The Divine Comedy, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Petrarch's writings and career, Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, Machiavelli's The Prince, and works of Erasmus, More, Rabelais, and Montaigne, and the art and architecture of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, and the stages of the Italian and Northern Renaissances. Some attention will be given to developments in Western music, as well, depending on student interest. Students will work in depth individually on particular authors, styles, or major works, in an approach that will intersperse lectures with discussion and seminar-type work. Two hour exams on passages, terms, historical placement, two essays, and a comprehensive final. Writing intensive course: strategies for essay examinations will be discussed, and revisions of essays will be encouraged. English 231 is a General Education course. It will also satisfy either the Western Humanities or the Literary/Rhetorical Arts requirements.