Chaucer & Medieval Literature
English 309
Fall 2008

Dr. Richard Goode
McEwen 210
337-2206
gooder@queens.edu


STUDY QUESTIONS FOR 

MEDIEVAL ROMANCE

MYSTERY PLAYS: In Performance

 THE CANTERBURY TALES

Texts: David Wright, trans. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: 1986. 
            Martial Rose, The Wakefield Mystery Plays, Doubleday, 1963.
            James Wilhelm, The Romance of Arthur, Garland Publishing, 1994.          
                                      
Requirements: Quizzes (25%), Mid-Term (25%), Final Exam (25%),  Term project & Class report (25%)                   

Grading & Attendance Policy.


Assignments:

Mon Aug 25    Introduction: Chaucer and the 14th Century.
                        A Medieval Timeline: also Chaucer's Life and Times

Wed Aug 27    Medieval Romance. 
                        Wilhelm, Chap. I and III: Arthur in Latin Chronicles and the Welsh Tradition ("Culhwch and Olwen") 
                         Read:  The Origins of the Arthur Legend

Mon Sept  1     Labor Day   No Class
                       
Wed Sept  3    Wilhelm, Chap IV, pp. 59-70 and 91-93; Chapters V, and VI: Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Layamon
 

Mon Sept 8    Chretien's Lancelot: Chap VII, pp. 121-127; 151-154; 163-165; 170-188; Chap X, The Romance of Tristan & Isolde
                       Read about Courtly Love and The Code of Chivalry and Rules of Courtly Love 
                       Watch: A Knight's Tale

Wed Sept 10     Chap XIV: Merlin, 330-348; Sir Gawain, 391-397; begin Chapter XVI, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 399-430               

Mon Sept 15   cont.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Chap 17, "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell."

Wed Sept 17   Chap 18: The Alliterative Morte Arthure  see St. Michael's Mount 
                        Read: Caxton's Peface to Malory's MorteDarthur   Fortune's Wheel
                         
Mon Sept 22   Chap 19: Read: Cadbury Castle as Camelot;  The Wars of the Roses
                        Read: Caxton's Peface to Malory's MorteDarthur  
                        Read: The "real" King Arthur       From Ritual to Romance

Wed Sept 24    Medieval Drama
                        Rose, Introduction, 9-55; The Plays of Creation and The Killing of Abel, 59-87. 
                        Read the notes to each play, pp. 153-160. 
                        Read: Medieval Drama: Myths of Evolution

Mon Sept 29     Rose, 88-119 - Noah, Abraham, Isaac and notes, pp. 160-165.
                          Read: The Wakefield Mysteries (description of a 1961 revival of the pays in London)
                      
Wed Oct  1        Rose 124-151 - Pharaoh, Prophets, Caesar, and notes, pp. 165-172.

Mon Oct  6       Rose, 175-234, Annunciation, 1st and 2nd Shepherd's Plays, and notes, pp. 293-303
                         Read: Image of Women in The Towneley (Wakefield) Cycle
                         Virgil's "Eclogue IV" (37 BCE)  Images

Wed Oct  8      Rose, 235-277 - The Magi, Flight into Egypt, Herod and notes, pp. 303-311.
                        Images

Mon Oct 13      Rose, 331-389 - Conspiracy, Buffeting, Scourging, and notes, pp. 415-423

Wed Oct 15     Rose, 390-413 - Judas and Crucifixion, and notes, pp. 423-427.
                        Rose, 458-476, 520-542 - Resurrection and Judgment, and notes, pp. 543-552.

Mon Oct 20    MID TERM EXAM           The Mystery Plays   Photos  Videos    Pharaoh  Shepherd's Play 1 Shepherd's Play 2

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THE CANTERBURY TALES & PILGRIMS   also see the Harvard Chaucer Page

 Wed Oct 22    "The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales," pp. 1-8.
                          Read: General Prologue and Chaucer The Pilgrim

Mon Oct 27       cont. "General Prologue," pp.8-22      Video: Canterbury Prologue

Wed Oct 29       "The Knight's Tale" and Chaucer's "Tale of Sir Topas"
                           Read: The Knight's Tale (Muscatine on the Knight), Knight's Tale (intro)

Mon Nov  3
"The Miller's Tale" 
Read: the fabliaux
Read: The Miller's Tale (commentary on the tale)
Study Questions

  and

"The Reeve's Tale"
Read: Reeve's Tale (commentary)
Study Questions



Wed Nov  5         
"The Friar's Tale" and "The Summoner's Tale"
Read:  Friar's Tale
Read: Summoner's Tale (follow the links)
Where did all the Friars go?  click Here!


Mon Nov  10

"The Wife of Bath's Tale"
Read: Prologue and Tale



Wed Nov 12   
"The Shipman's Tale" 
"The Clerk's Tale" - The "Envoy"
 Read:  The Marriage Question
 
                    

Mon Nov 17   
"The Merchant's Tale"
Read: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rashoaf/currency/twelve.html
   and
"The Franklin's Tale"
Read: Breton Lays

Wed  Nov 19    "Canon's Assistant's Tale"
                         Read: Canon's Assistant (commentary)

Thanksgiving Break Nov 24-30
Mon Dec 1   
"The Pardoner's Tale"
Read: Death of a salesman
Read: The Pardoner's Sexuality

 

Wed Dec   3    "The Nun's Priest's Tale"
                         Read: http://ccsun7.sogang.ac.kr/~anthony/Chaucer/NptArticle.htm

"The Author's Valediction (Retraction).
Read: The Retraction



Mon Dec   8    Review         Exam Study Guide
 

 


 

Grading: 

94-100 = A 87-89 = B+ 77-79 = C+ 65-69 = D+
90-93 =   A- 84-86 = B  74-76 = C  60-64 = D
  80-83 = B-  70-73 = C- below 60 = F


 

Attendance: Regular Attendance is required.  You may have 2 absences without penalty, but each absence in excess of 2 will cause your final grade to be reduced by 1/3 letter grade.  There will be almost daily quizzes, so you should be in class, on time, every day.  The two lowest will be dropped. If you miss a quiz, there are no make-ups.

 

 

TERM PROJECT

There are THREE objectives to be accomplished with this Term Project. First, it will familiarize you with the current scholarship on Chaucer and acquaint you with the methods of literary research. Second, it will give you experience in discovering a critical issue or problem of interpretation in a work of literature and formulating a thesis about it after exploring the relevant scholarship. Third, I hope it will prepare you to tackle any assignment (whether in graduate school or in a business office), stick with it and pursue it to the end until you are satisfied with your results.

I want you to think of your Chaucer paper this semester not as some boring expedition into the musty and irrelevant works of a dead medieval poet and the arcane analyses of equally musty and irrelevant old farts who have written about him over the years, but as the investigation of a fictional work and its characters who are both "of an age" and "for all time." You will be assigned one of the Canterbury Pilgrims on the first day of class. From that point on, your job is to become an expert on that Pilgrim and his/her Tale in the Canterbury Tales. You will have to do some research, find some articles in scholarly journals (book chapters are not so helpful here) using the PMLA Bibliography in the library and ProQuest. Both are on line. Internet articles are not helpful here either unless they come from refereed academic journals. We should soon have The Chaucer Review on line for our use.

You will be looking for information that explains what is specifically "medieval" about the story in question (its characters, its plot devices, its themes, attitudes, humor, seriousness,  Chaucer's sources, basically its use of medieval subject matter, story telling devices, and tone). Having established the medieval "spirit" of the Tale (with help from the scholars who have commented on the tale), you are then to consider how "contemporary" the characters, actions, issues, and themes in the tale are.

How to proceed:

1. First collect a BIBLIOGRAPHY of articles on your Pilgrim that will help you establish the story's medieval elements of content and style. Submit this preliminary bibliography and a tentative statement identifying the medieval elements in the story. Due September 29.

2. Take a first stab at organizing your thoughts about the tale's medieval nature and turn this in on October 27.  Do not think of this as a final draft at all. I will make suggestions, send you back to find additional information, request technical and substantive revisions. You must be prepared to do more research, to re-think the problem, to do the job until it meets the standards of competent research.

3. The second draft (due November5) should reflect the suggestions and requests occasioned by the first draft and should now make observations about the "contemporary" appeal of the story, themes, characters, etc.

4. The final draft (due November 19) is the one you have polished to perfection, reflecting the technical and substantive suggestions you have received. No "late papers" will be accepted.

5. Grade. Your grade on this project will be based both on the final product and on the process you have followed. A solid and competent report is of course expected. But insight, imagination, and analytical skills are what will produce a superior product. Obviously, this is something you will have to get started on early -- no all-nighters the day before the project is due!

6. When we take up your Pilgrim's Tale in class as we read The Canterbury Tales, you should be prepared to tell the class what you have been discovering, what the critical issues are in the Tale, what you are focusing on in your paper.

CLASS REPORT

You will also be assigned another Pilgrim for a report when we cover that Pilgrim in our discussion of the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. This will likely be a Pilgrim that is not the subject of a Term project. You should be prepared to tell the class what you have discovered about this Pilgrim, what his or her position in medieval society was, how the pilgrim fits into the structure of the Prologue and how Chaucer satirizes the pilgrim and his class or applauds the pilgrim for his virtue.


Return to English Home

  

 

DREAM VISIONS

Chaucer's Literary Influences. 
                         Read: Lyrics of Machaut, Deschamps, Chaucer (Hand-outs)
                         Read: from The Romance of the Rose (Hand-outs)
                         Read: "The Book of the Duchess" (1st 5 pages) in Dream Visions

"The Book of the Duchess" (complete).  Read the Study Questions for this and each of the dream visions to follow.
                        Read: Andreas Cappellanus ("Courtly Love"):                    
                            http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/andreas/de_amore.html    
                        Read: http://www.nd.edu/~zthundy/BD.html  and                
                                  http://www.english.bham.ac.uk/medievalstudies/me/duchess.htm

cont. "The House of Fame"
                         Read: http://www.arrakis.es/~jlserrano/vitoria.htm             

cont. "The Parliament of Fowls"
                         Read: http://colfa.utsa.edu/chaucer/ec30-2.html
                         Read: http://members.tripod.com/~warlight/HURIYE.html (on "place" in "Fame" and         
                                   Parliament"


Tales of the:
 Shipman: http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/shipt/silver.html
 
 Prioress: http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/priort/

 Physician: http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/physt/
 

 

Read: The Clerk http://panther.bsc.edu/~shagen/gresgend.htm
Courtly Love and The Ten Commandments of Love