English 330, Spring 2009, SYLLABUS VIEW (Last revised: 04/25/2009 04:46:21 PM)
Weekly Schedule and Assignments
For Weeks 2-4, I have set up
guides to the discussion to help you prepare to prepare. Note that we are
not only "reading Chaucer," though that is an essential prerequisite to adequate
preparation for the seminar. We also are comparing his style to that of
other medieval writers who are attempting to create something in the same
genres. It's up to you whether you read Chaucer first or the "others," but
make sure you have read and thought about both before we meet each Monday.
Week 0 (1/26): Because the Scheduling Gurus at College Center decided that we could not "adjust our schedules and go to classes on Monday, there will be no formal seminar meeting during the first week of classes. Nevertheless, I hope to meet with all of you to get to know your interests in studying Chaucer, and to help you start practicing your Middle English. I know some of you will be worried about the Middle English part, but if you treat it like "singing," and practice the tune, the sound of it will become familiar to you within a few weeks. I have made a set of conference times available. Email me to reserve a time. Click here for help understanding how to pronounce Middle English vowels and consonants. For a sample quiz on the "General Prologue," and a link to the answers and rationales for the questions, click here.
Week 1 (2/2): Course introduction, fast lesson in Middle English pronunciation and reading, Chaucer's life and culture, and the role of manuscripts, books, and editors in the invention of the Canterbury Tales. Before you read the Middle English primary texts, read: the Riverside Chaucer (RC) "Introduction" first 11 pages (xv-xxvi) for a short biography of Chaucer, and this linked web page on stylistic and content comparison of poems. Then read the "General Prologue" (853 ll.), and "London Lickpenny," (128 ll.), a satire of the C15 English legal system and London street culture. Click here for a guide to today's discussion. We will practice reading aloud one or more of these three short lyrics to practice Middle English skills: "Truth: Balade de Bon Consul" (653), "Gentilesse: Moral Balade of Chaucier" (654), and Lak of Stedfastnesse" (654). For critical studies of Chaucer's shorter lyrics, including these, click here.
Week 2 (2/9): Epic and romance, part one: "Knight's Tale"
Parts 1 and 2 (859-1880 [1021 ll.]); Marie de France,
"Eliduc."
Click here for a guide to today's discussion.
Annotated bibliography #1 DUE in the English 330 public folder by 9 AM Friday.
Click here for a
guide to what makes a bibliographic annotation useful to other scholars.
Week 3 (2/16): Epic and romance, part two: "Knight's Tale" Parts 3 and 4 (1881-3108 [1217 ll.]); selections from the beginning and conclusion of Boccaccio's Theseid of the Nuptials of Emilia (Teseida Delle Nozze Di Emilia), pages 105-16 and 144-52 [photocopy]. Click here for a guide to today's discussion. BIB. HOLIDAY: NO ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY DUE!
Week 4 (2/23): Fabliau Week! Fabliaux by Chaucer: "Miller's Prologue and Tale," "Reeve's Prologue and Tale," and "Shipman's Tale" (1650 ll.). Non-Chaucerian fabliaux: "Les Trois Dames Qui Troverent un Vit (Three Dames and a Dildo)"; "Le Chevalier a la Corbeille (The Knight of the Basket)"; "La Gageure (How a Well-Hung Squire Cost the Snobbish Lady a Tun of Wine)"; "Le Chevalier qui Fist le Cons Parler (Or, the Vagina Dialogues)" in Carter Revard's parallel text edition ("Four Fabliaux...," Chaucer Review 40:2 (2005) 111-140 available online at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/chaucer_review/v040/40.2revard.html). Click here for a guide to today's discussion.
Annotated bibliography #2 DUE in the English 330 public folder by 9 AM Friday.
Week 5 (3/2):Moral Tales, Part One [see Week 8]: "Man of Law's Prologue, Tale, and Endlink" (1190 ll.); "Pardoner's Tale,", "Physician's Tale," (286 ll.),John Gower, Confessio Amantis II, ll. 587-1612; "Novelle LXXXII" from the Novelle Antiche, in Thomas Roscoe's The Italian Novelists (London: Frederick Warne,) 19-21 [Note: the Roscoe translation is an online "flip-book" format. Read it with your RC "PartT" open beside the screen to compare the treatment of the narrative.] BIB. HOLIDAY: NO ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY DUE! Click here for a guide to today's discussion.
Week 6 (3/9): Marriage Satires and Romances: "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," (1716 ll.); "Merchant's Prologue and Tale" (1228 ll.), "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle"; click here for the online text of "Wedding" (852 lines), John Lydgate, "Payne and Sorowe of Evyll Maryage" (126 ll.). BIB. HOLIDAY: NO ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY DUE! Click here for a guide to today's discussion.
MIDTERM PAPER DUE as an email attachment in my inbox by the first Sunday, of Spring Break. You can turn it in earlier, or later but please don't delay it without negotiating with me.
Spring Break, Saturday, 3/14 through Sunday, 3/22
Week 7 (3/23): Anti-Clerical Satire: "Friar's Prologue and Tale," "Summoner's Prologue and Tale" (1030 ll.) Makeup for snow day presentation: Pardoner's Tale; "Allas, What Schul We Freris Do" (36 ll.) Text, and "Freers, Freers, Wo Ye Be" (42 ll.) Text (Introduction to "Anticlerical Poems and Documents" by James M. Dean).
BIB. HOLIDAY: NO ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY DUE!
Week 8 (3/30): Moral Tales, Part Two: "Clerk's Prologue and Tale" (1212 ll.), "Monk's Prologue and Tale," (878 ll.); makeup for snow-day presentation, Man of Law's Prologue,Tale and Endlink; and Boccaccio, "Patient Griselda" (Decameron, Day 10, Tale 10). Click here for a very grand, late-C15 painting illustrating the major scenes from the story, now at the National Gallery (London). BIB. #3 DUE in the English 330 public folder by 9AM Friday.
Week 9 (4/6): Debate or "question d'amour" Tale "Franklin's Prologue and Tale," (916 ll.); makeup for snow-day presentation: Physician's Prologue and Tale; Marie de France, "Chaitivel" and "Les Deus Amanz.." BIB. #4 DUE in the English 330 public folder by 9 AM Friday. This is the end of the annotated bibliography project. Before you write your final paper, take time to scan the articles annotated by the rest of the seminar. Remember that they each offer you four more possible sources of information and potential analytical approaches which you might use to structure your own paper.
Week 10 (4/13): Miracles of the Virgin and saints' lives/legends: "Prioress' Prologue and Tale" (238 ll.), "Second Nun's Prologue and Tale" (553 ll.), "The Clerk Who Would See the Virgin" (200 ll.--the link goes to a transcription of the Auchinleck MS copy, which is gnarly, but you can also read it in Beverly Boyd's edition, along with "The Child Slain by Jews" (Vernon MS, f. 124) and "The Jewish Boy" (Vernon MS f. 124b-125), and "Life of St. Cecelia" from Caxton's translation of Jacobus de Voraigne's Legenda Aurea. For some context to help you understand the blurring of sacred and secular in popular medieval embellishments of sacred Christian texts, see the Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus by Thomas, an apocryphal gospel that fills in the gaps in the canonical Gospel narrative.
Week 11 11 (4/20): Vice's confession / thieves' tricks: "Pardoner's Prologue," (134 ll.), "Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale," (1481 ll.); Everyman (the speeches by Fellowship, Kindred and Cousin, and especially Goods, ll. 180-462).
Week 12 (4/27): Beast fables!: "Nuns' Priest's Prologue and Tale" (1584 ll.) "Manciple's Prologue and Tale," (362 ll.), and Caxton's Middle English Translations of Aesop's Fables (read at least the first one, "Of the Cok and of the precious stone," and as many others as you like--I confess I am partial to 1.6., "Of the lyon and of the cowe / of the goote and of the sheep").
Week 13 (5/4): Self-satire and intentional fragments: "Cook's Prologue and Tale" (98 ll.), "Squire's Tale," (708 ll.), "Rime of Sir Thopas," (276 ll.), and "The Cook's Tale" from the Bodley MS 686 (98 ll.). Course evaluations. If you are interested in the "Cook's Tale," a longer attempt to write the tale he never finished survives in the "Tale of Gamelyn." Click on the hyperlink to read a tale that was circulated with Chaucer's authentic CT through the Renaissance. Most scholars think it is apocryphal (not by Chaucer), though some speculate he might have been working on its traditional "outlaw tale" material but did not complete anything original before his death.