Patricia Dailey

Extremely and unnecessarily harsh (coming from an English background). The class and material are interesting, but you need to genuinely enjoy them to engage at the level Professor Dailey expects. The weekly readings are heavy, but you don’t need to focus on every single one to contribute meaningfully. Professor Dailey wants to hear everyone's opinions and will value you showing your particular way of engaging with the material. Grading feels somewhat arbitrary and harsh, especially for participation and papers. I get the sense that you need to be very in line with what Prof. Dailey expects (and the way she sees the content) to be able to get a high score. Overall, I enjoyed the class but did not enjoy Dailey. That said, I think she is a somewhat understanding professor who wants the best for her students but is very strict and expects something very specific. Take the class only if you're willing to engage deeply with the material, put in the intense work, and decipher and align with what the professor expects.

Professor Dailey knows SO MUCH about mysticism, and what she doesn't know, she brings in help to address. I really appreciated how she acknowledged both her areas of expertise and where she was missing information in this course. I got an introduction to mysticism that was perhaps more than I'd bargained for. The one thing that I didn't realize until a TA pointed it out for me is that Dailey is a feminist atheist, which definitely colors how she teaches this course. I would really keep that in mind if you end up taking it–it means that a lot of her lectures, especially about the female mystics, deal with their roles as women in medieval society and thus the "prison literature" that she brands their work as. It's definitely a POV to take into consideration, but also meant that it was hard to learn about mysticism separate or even parallel to the idea of feminism and gender. I would have liked to be able to think about these mystics as more than just women in medieval society, but it was hard to do when Dailey introduced that perspective early on and kept at it all the way throughout. I also think that while Dailey's knowledge of literature and the medieval time period is astounding, at times she seemed to forget that some of her students knowledge isn't. I came into her class as a freshman in her first semester, which generally was okay, except for the many moments in which Dai…

This is a fun class. Small, self-selecting, and fairly niche, as would be expected from a seminar with reading knowledge of Anglo Saxon as a prerequisite. And while translation is the major component of the workload, the class itself is more for discussion and literary analysis than for the technical aspects of language and translation, so the more solid your own foundation in OE, the better, though Prof. Dailey will give you tons and tons of language resources to help. Workload is manageable and negotiable. The grading is pretty easy. I feel like as long as you come off as more or less competent, Dailey will give you the benefit of the doubt and grade you well.

Professor Dailey's Introduction to Old English (ENGL W4091x) isn't very good. Professor Dailey clearly knows Old English enough to translate it into Modern English on her own, but her command of the language isn't thorough enough to make her a competent teacher of it. She's halting, easily flustered, and sometimes seemingly confused in class. I should add that she's a terrible classroom manager, and assertive, obnoxious students can easily (and do) hijack the class with dumb questions. Old English is certainly worth learning, but I'd recommend doing it at another institution or on one's own rather than taking this course.

This is a review for non-medieval studies majors like me. There are a couple great reasons to take this class. First of course you will read excellent poems and stories that you will never find by yourself. Second, Prof. Dailey is one of those rare birds who grades papers thoroughly. She requires a topic paragraph in advance. Then she accepts electronic submission of the final. And she e-mails it back to you covered in comments, along with a paragraph synthesizing everything she said (and you said) at the end. She corrects grammar and style, suggests how to extend your ideas, and recommends further reading. Exactly what you want in any humanities class and here you finally get it. The course pursues a good question: how did people understand the past in the past? I really liked considering this and if you are a history or anthropology major, you might too. The English majors who dominated the class were more interested in literary stuff, but the professor will speak at length to the question.

Professor Dailey is a fantastic professor, one of the most brilliant I've come across (with a memory verging on encyclopedic), who definetly knows her stuff. While she can be quite abstract at times, and therefore a little difficult to follow, this should not be confused with ignorance. I found her grading quite appropriate. She does not inflate grades, so if you're doing B- work, that's what you'll get. I've found she has no trouble disagreeing with student opinions, but does so in an appropriate manner, usually asking for further clarification, helping guide the student back on track. I did quite well with her papers and found her comments extremely helpful for deepening my own thoughts and just generally taking my work to the next level. While it is the responsibility of professors to help their students achieve greater understanding of the material and to guide them in the best articulation of their ideas (which Dailey does in spades), they should not be condemned for calling mediocre or inadequate work for what it is.

Here, I worked to build a foundational understanding of Old English grammar and literature

On the first day of class I thought I was in the wrong place. On the second day of class I thought I still thought I was in the wrong place, but I carried on. By the third class, I realized what a privilege it is to be in Professor Dailey's class. This woman isn't just smart- she is the walking encyclopedia of her field and what she doesn't know, she is quite willing to admit. She values everyone's opinions, and surprisingly, everyone had interesting and thought-provoking things to say. She expects a lot from you and the work is at times challenging, but you will walk away from her class with more knowledge than you realize at the time. Months later, that knowledge will still be there. Please take a class with Dailey. Don't be intimidated. It's one of those classes from which you walk away feeling rather proud.

Weekly translations/discussion posts on 2ndary readings—40% 5-page paper—25% 10-page paper—35%

Beyond an introduction to the Old English language, this course focused on accessing the literature/culture/world created by, invoked, and referenced in the texts. In addition to the most representative Old English texts, we read a wide range of critical secondary source material.