The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed.
Houghton Mifflin.
Six Ecclesiastical Satires, ed. James M. Dean. Medieval Institute
Publications.
Sir Gawain & the Green Knight: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience.
Everyman Library. Reprint ed.
Piers Plowman, trans. E. T. Donaldson. Norton.
John Gower, Confessio amantis. Ed. Russell Peck. Univ.
of Toronto; Medieval Academy Reprint for Teaching.
The goal of this course is to locate Chaucer and his writings in the literary, cultural, and political milieu of the Ricardian period (the late fourteenth century). I have a number of questions I want to explore with you in this course. How and why did Chaucer come to be regarded as the "founder" of "English letters"? How did he respond to the intellectual and political crises of his day, especially the Great Rising of 1381 and Lollardy? Why did he reject the alliterative long line, the dominant poetic style of the mid to late fourteenth century? What was his relationship to or affinities with the other writers of the Ricardian period, especially William Langland, the Gawain-poet, and John Gower? The course will be organized around topics, which may include the elegy (Chaucer's Book of the Duchess; the Gawain-poet's Pearl); religious strife (Chaucer's Friar's and Summoner's Tales; Piers Plowman; Jack Upland; Friar Daw's Reply; Upland's Rejoinder); romance and its discontents (Chaucer's Knight's and Wife of Bath's Tales; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight); sexuality and society (Chaucer's Miller's and Merchant's Tales; Gower's Tale of Appolonius of Tyre; the Gawain-poet's Cleanness). Selections from Chaucer and Gower will be read in Middle English; some of the other works will be read in modern English translation. There will be some attention early in the course to history of the English language, including medieval English dialects, and to accurate pronunciation of Chaucer's poetry; but the emphasis will be on recovering meaning from Middle English texts and the varieties of critical approaches to medieval texts. Texts will include an edition of Chaucer and my own Six Ecclesiastical Satires. Other requirements include class discussion and response papers leading up to a 12-15 page research project.
Readings
Week 1 (Feb. 8)
No class this day. Read Benson's Introduction to Chaucer's language and pronunciation. Read Shakespeare's Richard II in any fully annotated edition for a view of history during Chaucer's time.
Week 2 (Feb. 15): Translation & Logocentrism
Read Chaucer's Book of the Duchess (find this on the Book of the Duchess Home Page from Calgary, Canada) and Gower's Tale of Ceyx and Alcyone (Book 4, lines 2927f.; pp. 225-31). Follow along with Dean's trans. of Gower.
Week 3 (Feb. 22): More elegy
Read Pearl. Also read Matthew chap. 21 and Revelations 20 and 21 and from Chap. XIII of the Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible, in Medieval English Political Writings, ed. Dean (on Reserve).
Week 4 (March 1): Romance & reality
Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight
Chaucer's Knight's Tale
Week 5 (March 8) Sexulity and society
Chaucer's Miller's Tale & Merchant's Tale
The Monk's Prologue
Articles by D. W. Robertson, John Fleming, and Larry Benson on Chaucer's
puns.
Week 6 (March 15) Women & romance
The Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale
General Prologue: The Guildsmen
Gower's Tale of Florent
Brian Gastle's article, "Chaucer's 'Shaply' Guildsmen and Mercantile
Pretensions," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99.2 (1998): 211-15.
Week 7 (March 22) Biblical Storytelling & Allegory
Patience & Cleanness
Biblical book of Jonah (in Wycliffite Bible)
Haimo of Auxerre, Commentary on the Book of Jonah (handout or
Reserve)
Visit of Ron Herzman from SUNY Geneseo
Week 8 (April 5) Salvation & Revolt
Piers Plowman
Selected documents on the Great Rising of 1381
Week 9 (April 12) The Plowman Tradition
Piers Plowman (con.)
Piers
the Plowman's Crede, in 6 Eccles. Satires
Week 10 (April 19) Satire & Society
The
Plowman's Tale [link to Dean's edition of TEAMs text]
Chaucer's Friar's Tale
Jack
Upland and Friar
Daw's Reply, in 6 Eccles. Satire [link to Dean's editions
of TEAMS texts]
Week 11 (April 26) More Satire
Chaucer's Summoner's Tale
Upland's
Rejoinder and Why
I Can't Be a Nun, in 6 Eccles. Satires [link to Dean's edition
of TEAMS text]
Week 12 (May 3) Book Strategies
Gower, Prologue to Confessio Amantis
Chaucer, General Prologue
Gower, Book 1, 5, & 8 (selections)
Week 13 (May 10) From Chronicle History to Drama
Drama segment
The York Fall of Man
The Croxton Play of the Sacrament
The Castle of Perseverance (on line in Modern translation: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/
~ajohnsto/cascomp.html) (??)
Genesis 3-4 in Wycliffite Bible
Opening of Cursor Mundi
Adam & Eve texts (Canticum de creatione; from The Wheatley
Manuscript)
Week 14 (May 17) The Medieval Book
Miscellany of shorter works by Lydgate, Hoccleve, & Chaucer
(from the facsimile MS of CUL Trinity R.3.19)
Paleography & codicology segment
Semester Project
50%
Pedagogical Projects
20%
Class discussion
10%
Response papers
20%
What does a good response paper look like? Click HERE to find out.