Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2023). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. This is an intensive one-year taught degree course. It is intended to give students experience in reading and interpreting a wide range of Armenian texts, from a choice of genres, either as a stand-alone qualification or as a solid foundation in the subject for those intending to go on to do doctoral research. Within the long span of Armenian history, the study of Armenia at Oxford concentrates on the period when Armenian sources give valuable information not only about Armenian culture itself, but also about neighbouring peoples of the Near East. Emphasis is given to the study of the classical and medieval forms of the language and to Armenian literature from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries. After an initial introduction to the grammar and syntax of classical Armenian, you will read a variety of texts. An understanding of the literary culture of the period and the historical background is thus obtained directly from the original sources. The course consists of four papers. The first is a core course on the language, literature, history, and culture of Ancient and Medieval Armenia. The remaining three papers are core courses on key Armenian literary genres. For these papers you must choose to study texts in three of the following subjects:

• biblical texts

• homiletic and polemical literature

• hagiographic texts

• historical literature of the 5th-9th centuries

• historical literature of the 10th-14th centuries

• religious and secular verse

• any other subject approved by the Faculty Board