Texts:
Description:
A detailed examination of the composition, manuscript presentation, genres, narrative techniques, and cultural contexts of many of the tales in one of the most important and brilliant collections of short narratives produced in the English language. We will read a sample of Chaucer's courtly genres, fabliaux, and religious tales. Our major concentration will be on the comparative study of these narratives in two contexts: first, that of the parallel transmission of closely related stories in various versions throughout medieval Europe, and second, that of the interrelation of tales (and their tellers) within the fragments of Chaucer's fiction of a Canterbury pilgrimage.
Requirements:
Students will be responsible for the content not only of the reading assignments, but also of our discussions in class. Regular attendance and participation in the discussions of all texts are prerequisites for passing the course. You may also expect brief quizzes on all reading assignments. Three unexcused absences will adversely affect the final grade for the course. The final grades for the course will be composed of individual performance in six areas:
1. A short oral presentation (10-15 minutes) representing the fruits of your initial research on a topic dealing with one of the tales which will either be assigned to you or which you will choose yourself after consultation with me.
2. A short oral presentation (10-15 minutes) of a review of the work of a major Chaucerian scholar. Two or three students may wish to work together on a series of oral presentations of related tales (or tales in one fragment) to be held during the same class meeting or at successive class meetings. The presentations should be open-ended and should encourage questions from the rest of the class. The grades on both of the presentations will account for about 25 percent of the final grade.
3. A brief synopsis (2-3 pages; typewritten; double-spaced; with 1-inch margins, page numbers, and your name on every page; and carefully proofread) of one or two major studies of the tale on which your report is based. This synposis will be due on the date on which report 1) is given.
4. A brief synopsis (2-3 pages; typewritten; double-spaced; with 1-inch margins, page numbers, and your name on every page; and carefully proofread) of the most characteristic quality of the major Chaucerian you have studied. This synopsis will be due on the date on which oral report 2) is given. The grades on both of the synopses will account for about 20 percent of the final grade.
5. A short paper (5-10 pages; typewritten; double-spaced; with 1-inch margins, page numbers, and your name on every page; and carefully proofread) to be handed in normally one week after your presentation on one of the tales. In general, the paper will not only incorporate the research which went into the oral presentation on the tale, but will also reflect the discussion in class which it set in motion. It will include an annotated bibliography of 5-10 items which you will have read in preparation for giving the report and writing the paper. The short paper for all reports on one of the tales to be held in November will be due on October 21. The short paper will serve as the basis for your term paper. The grade on the short paper will account for about 20 percent of the final grade.
6. A term paper (15-20 pages; typewritten; double-spaced; with 1-inch margins, page numbers, and your name on every page; and carefully proofread) in which all of the research on your topic dealing with one of the tales, and all of your own brilliance, are formulated carefully and in the scope which the subject demands. Term papers (with the short papers described above in 5) must be turned in to me in my office at the latest on Tuesday, December 8, by 12:15 p.m. The grade on the term paper will account for about 30 percent of the final grade.
2 (9/9) Fragment I: The General Prologue (audio cassette: IMS: PR1867.G4 1961)
3 (9/16) Fragment I: The Knight’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________
4 (9/23) Fragment I: The Miller’s Tale, _________________; The Reeve’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
(9/30) no class: Yom Kippur
5 (10/7) Fragment II: The Man of Law’s Tale, _________________; Fragment III: The Wife of Bath’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________
6 (10/14) Fragment III: The Friar’s Tale, _________________; The Summoner’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
7 (10/21) Fragment V: The Squire’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________; The Franklin’s Tale, _________________
8 (10/28) Fragment IV: The Clerk’s Tale, _________________; The Merchant’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
9 (11/4) Fragment VI: The Physician’s Tale, _________________; The Pardoner’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
10 (11/11) Fragment VIII: The Second Nun’s Tale, _________________; The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________
11 (11/18) Fragment VII: The Shipman’s Tale, _________________; The Prioress’ Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
12 (11/25) Fragment VII: The Monk’s Tale, _________________; The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, _________________; scholar, _________________, _________________
13 (12/2) Excerpts from the film: The Canterbury Tales (dir., Pier Paolo Pasolini); evaluations
Term papers must be turned in to me in my office at the latest on Tuesday, December 8, at 12:15 p.m.
The Knight’s Tale: Elizabeth Salter, The Knight’s Tale and the Clerk’s Tale (London, 1962) and idem, Fourteenth-century English Poetry: Contexts and Readings (Oxford, 1983), pp. 141-81.
The Miller’s Tale: V.A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, London, 1984), chapter 4; C. David Benson, Chaucer’s Drama of Style: Poetic Variety and Contrast in the Canterbury Tales (Chapel Hill, London, 1986), chapter 4.
The Reeve’s Tale: Glending Olson, "The Reeve’s Tale as a Fabliau," Modern Language Quarterly 35 (1974), 219-30; Paul A. Olson, "The Reeve’s Tale: Chaucer’s Measure for Measure," Studies in Philology 59 (1962), 1-17.
The Man of Law’s Tale: Paul M. Clogan, "The Narrative Style of The Man of Law’s Tale," Medievalia et Humanistica N.S. 8 (1977), 217-33; Roger Ellis, Patterns of Religious Narrative in the Canterbury Tales (London, Sydney, 1986), chapter 6.
The Wife of Bath’s Tale: Sigmund Eisner, A Tale of Wonder: A Source Study of The Wife of Bath’s Tale (Wexford, Ireland, 1957); Alfred David, The Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer’s Poetry (Bloomington, London, 1976), chapter 9; Lee Patterson, "’For the Wyves love of Bathe’: Feminine Rhetoric and Poetic Resolution in the Roman de la Rose and the Canterbury Tales," Speculum 58 (1983), 656-95.
The Friar’s Tale: Thomas Hahn and Richard W. Kaeuper, "Text and Context: Chaucer’s Friar’s Tale," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 5 (1983), 67-101; Przemyslaw Mroczkowski, "The ‘Friar’s Tale’ and its Pulpit Background," English Studies Today 2nd ser. (1961), 107-20.
The Summoner’s Tale: Penn R. Szittya, "The Friar as False Apostle: Antifraternal Exegesis and the Summoner’s Tale," Studies in Philology 71 (1974), 19-46; Earle Birney, "Structural Irony within the Summoner’s Tale," Anglia 78 (1960), 204-18, repr. in idem, Essays on Chaucerian Irony, ed. B. Rowland (Toronto, 1985), pp. 109-23.
The Clerk’s Tale: J. Burke Severs, The Literary Relations of Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale (New Haven, 1942); Francis Lee Utley, "Five Genres in the Clerk’s Tale," Chaucer Review 6 (1972), 198-228.
The Merchant’s Tale: Robert M. Jordan, Chaucer and the Shape of Creation: The Aesthetic Possibilities of Inorganic Structure (Cambridge, MA, 1967), chapter 6; Karl P. Wentersdorf, "Theme and Structure in the Merchant’s Tale: The Function of the Pluto Episode," PMLA 80 (1965), 522-27.
The Squire’s Tale: David Lawton, Chaucer’s Narrators, Chaucer Studies 13 (Cambridge, Dover, NH, 1985), pp. 106-29; Gardiner Stillwell, "Chaucer in Tartary," Review of English Studies 24 (1948), 177-88.
The Franklin’s Tale: Kathryn Hume, "Why Chaucer Calls the Franklin’s Tale a Breton Lai," Philological Quarterly 51 (1972), 365-79; Gerald Morgan, ed., Geoffrey Chaucer: The Franklin’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales (London, 1980).
The Physician’s Tale: Anne Middleton, "The Physician’s Tale and Love’s Martyrs: ‘Ensamples Mo Than Ten’ as a Method in the Canterbury Tales," Chaucer Review 8 (1973), 9-32; Joerg O. Fichte, "Incident - History - Exemplum - Novella: The Transformation of History in Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale," Florilegium 5 (1983), 189-207.
The Pardoner’s Tale: Alastair Minnis, "Chaucer’s Pardoner and the Office of Preacher," in P. Boitani and A. Torti, eds., Intellectuals and Writers in Fourteenth-century Europe (Tübingen, Cambridge, 1986), pp. 88-119; John M. Steadman, "Old Age and Contemptus mundi in The Pardoner’s Tale," Medium Ævum 33 (1964), 121-30 (repr. in D.R. Faulkner, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Pardoner’s Tale (Englewood Cliffs, 1973).
The Second Nun’s Tale: Paul M. Clogan, "The Figural Style and Meaning of The Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale," Medievalia et Humanistica N.S. 3 (1972), 213-40; Sherry L. Reames, "The Cecilia Legend as Chaucer Inherited it and Retold it: The Disappearance of an Augustinian Ideal," Speculum 55 (1980), 38-57.
The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale: Edgar H. Duncan, "The Literature of Alchemy and Chaucer’s Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale: Framework, Theme, and Characters," Speculum 43 (1968), 633-56; Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1957), pp. 213-21.
The Shipman’s Tale: Murray Copland, "The Shipman’s Tale: Chaucer and Boccaccio," Medium Ævum 35 (1966), 11-28; V.J. Scattergood, "The Originality of the Shipman’s Tale," Chaucer Review 11 (1976/77), 210-31.
The Prioress’ Tale: Robert Worth Frank, jr., "Miracles of the Virgin, Medieval Anti-Semitism, and the ‘Prioress’ Tale’," in L.D. Benson and S. Wenzel, eds., The Wisdom of Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Morton W. Bloomfield (Kalamazoo, 1982), pp. 177-88; Florence H. Ridley, The Prioress and the Critics (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1965).
The Tale of Sir Thopas: Laura Hibbard Loomis, "The Tale of Sir Thopas," in W.F. Bryan and G. Dempster, eds., Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (London, 1958), pp. 486-559; Alan T. Gaylord, "The ‘Miracle’ of Sir Thopas," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 6 (1984), 65-84.
The Tale of Melibee: Diane Bornstein, "Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee as an Example of Style clergical," Chaucer Review 12 (1978), 236-54; Paul Strohm, "The Allegory of the Tale of Melibee," Chaucer Review 2 (1967), 32-42.
The Monk’s Tale: Piero Boitani, "The Monk’s Tale: Dante and Boccaccio," Medium Ævum 55 (1972), 50-69; David E. Berndt, "Monastic Acedia and Chaucer’s Characterization of Daum Piers," Studies in Philology 68 (1971), 435-50.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: Morton W. Bloomfield, "The Wisdom of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale," in E. Vasta and Z.P. Thundy, eds., Chaucerian Problems and Perspectives. Essays Presented to Paul E. Beichner (Notre Dame, 1979), pp. 70-82; Paul G. Ruggiers, The Art of the Canterbury Tales (Madison, London, 1967), pp. 184-96.
C. David Benson, Chaucer’s Drama of Style: Poetic Variety and Contrast in the Canterbury Tales (Chapel Hill, London, 1986).
Piero Boitani, Chaucer and Boccaccio (Oxford, 1977).
Derek Brewer, Chaucer: The Poet as Storyteller (London, 1984).
Derek Brewer, Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer (London, 1982).
Alfred David, The Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer’s Poetry (Bloomington, London, 1976).
Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (Madison, 1989).
E. Talbot Donaldson, Speaking of Chaucer (New York, 1970).
John H. Fisher, The Importance of Chaucer (Carbondale, IL, 1992).
Donald R. Howard, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley, 1976).
Robert M. Jordan, Chaucer and the Shape of Creation: The Aesthetic Possibilities of Inorganic Structure (Cambridge, MA, 1967).
Robert M. Jordan, Chaucer’s Poetics and the Modern Reader (Berkeley, 1987).
V.A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford, London, 1984).
David Lawton, Chaucer’s Narrators (Woodbridge, Eng., Dover, NH, 1985).
Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire: The Literature of Social Classes and the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, Eng., 1973).
Jill Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1991).
Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1957).
Paul A. Olson, The Canterbury Tales and the Good Society (Princeton, 1986).
Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History (Madison, 1991).
Derek A. Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London, Boston, 1985).
D.W. Robertson, Jr., A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives (Princeton, 1962).
Paul G. Ruggiers, The Art of the Canterbury Tales (Madison, 1965).
Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer (Cambridge, MA, 1989).