Fall Semester 2012. Eng 3001

Studies in Chaucer

Wed / Fri 15:00

This course introduces some of Chaucer's works, especially the Canterbury Tales. All the lectures and reports will be in English.

Week 1 March 2   My home page's  Introduction to Chaucer  Jane Zatta's 14th-century History     Introduction to the development of European Love Literature of the Middle Ages (Korean version)

Week 2 March 7, 9    love continued,  Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and the link with Chaucer

Week 3 March 14, 16 Boethius Consolation of Philosophy  and the notion of Fortune / chance and changes of (un)happiness

Week 4 March 21, 24 Troilus and Criseyde  Books 1-2,  Book 3

Week 5 March 28, 30 Troilus and Criseyde  Books 4 -5

Week 6 April 4 (no class April 6) The Knight’s Tale  (Abbreviated text for class) (Abbreviated text in PDF format for printing.)  complete text (with notes) in modernized English spelling

Week 7 April 11, 13 The Knight’s Tale continued
Week 8 April 18, 20 The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales  (Text with notes) (General Introduction) (Extracts in modernized spelling PDF File for printing)

Week 9  April 25 or 27 Mid-term Exams

Week 10 May 2, 4 The Miller’s Tale (Text) (General Introduction)  PDF file for printing  Text in modernized English spelling 

Week 11 May 9,11  The Nun's Priest's Tale (Text) (Article) (General Introduction) PDF file for printing  Complete text in modernized English spelling    Marie de France's Fable 

Week 12 May 16, 18  The Wife of Bath :  Prologue and Tale (General Introduction)  (Texts in modern spelling)   PDF file for printing    Romance of the Rose

Week 13 May 23, (No class May 25) The Wife of Bath continued

Week 14 May 30, June 1 The Pardoner's Introduction, Prologue and Tale (General Introduction) online texts in modern spelling   My PDF file in modern spelling Read my article (also in Korean)

Week 15  June 8 (no classes Wed) The Pardoner's Tale continued 
Week 16 June 13, 15 The Clerk's Tale in modern English   Retraction

Week 17 Exams

Textbooks

Students must prepare for class each week by reading the text in a Korean translation:  Troilus and Criseyde by 김재환, for the Canterbury Tales either that by 김진만 or by 이동춘 and 이동일

For the English text of the Canterbury Tales: Brother Anthony  and Lee Dong-Chun, Textual Criticism of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (SNU Press) This contains the text, together with introductions and notes in Korean. Short versions of Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale can be printed out using the links in the syllabus on Br Anthony’s home page.

Brother Anthony's Literature in English Society Part 1: The Middle Ages (Sogang University Press) gives more background to the course.

Assignments
 
For the Midterm Evaluation, each student will write a report comparing the ways the themes of Fortune, gain and loss of happiness, and love are treated in Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale (due by the Tuesday morning after the exams).

Each student will prepare a final report of some length (due on June 26), discussing the narratorial strategies and the different varieties of “story-telling” found in the Miller's Tale, the Nun's Priest's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Prologue & Tale and the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale.

Evaluation

In addition to the above assignments, there will be a midterm and a final examination. Each exam and report will be of equal importance

More Links

 My Chaucer links.  Medieval links.
The Cambridge Troilus picture. The Caxton editions.
The Knight's Tale  Read my article
The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Edwin Duncan's online text)  Images from Ellesmere. Images from several Mss.
The Nun's Priest's Tale Read my article  then  read my other article.
 The Nun's Tale  Read my article

 
* The influence of Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy) and the question of destiny and human freedom in the Knight's Tale. The way in which the pre-Christian setting affects our reading.
* The social and individual (moral) aspects of the portraits in the General Prologue. The ways in which the narrator influences (and does not influence) readers' responses to the various pilgrims.
* The contrast between the idealized love of the Knight's Tale and the frankly physical desire of the Miller's Tale.
* The confusing rhetoric of the Nun's Priest's Tale and the question of how an audience is to find the 'moral / meaning' of a story.
* The anti-feminist attitude to women expressed in (or challenged in) the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale.
* The relationship between the Christian message and the people working in and for the Church in the General Prologue and the Pardoner's Prologue / Tale