Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
Class Information
Instructor: Waters, Claire
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50am
Location: Olson 118
GE Areas: Writing Experience
Description
Chaucer's last major work is also his most famous, for its lively variety of voices and characters, its humor, its range of genres and literary styles. We will read a substantial selection of the Tales in their original Middle English, thinking about how the Canterbury Tales reflect on the literary traditions Chaucer inherited and the social world of late fourteenth-century England. We will also read modern critical takes on Chaucer and his works as well as a handful of responses to and reworkings of them by contemporary writers.
Course learning outcomes:
Upon successfully completing this course, a student will:
* be able to read texts in Middle English poetry or prose with reasonable speed and confidence;
* have basic knowledge of the historical development of English up to Chaucer?s time;
* be familiar with the online Middle English Dictionary and Chaucer Concordance and able to use them to explore particular words? range of meaning and apply this knowledge in close readings of the text;
* have basic historical context concerning Geoffrey Chaucer and late-medieval England;
* have had practice writing abstracts of critical sources and of their own work;
* have a sense of the critical conversation around certain aspects of Chaucer?s work and be able to engage with these in their own critical essays.
Grading
Assignments and percentage of grade:
* Section attendance and participation: 10%.
* Discussion posts and responses: 10%.
* In-class and online exercises/quizzes: 5%.
* Short close-reading exercise (800?1000 words): 10%.
* Midterm exam: 10%.
* Short close-reading essay (1200?1500 words): 15%.
* Paper proposal and annotated bibliography: 10%.
* Final research paper (about 2000 words) with abstract: 20%.
* Final exam: 10%.
Texts
The Canterbury Tales: Seventeen Tales and the General Prologue (Norton), Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Kolve and Olson