Tentative Syllabus for English 4188:

The Poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer

Spring 2008

Place: Humanities 228

Time: MW 2:00-3:15

Instructor: Dr. Micheal Crafton

Office:  Sanford Hall

Office hours: M-F by appointment.

Email: mcrafton@westga.edu

Home page: http://www.westga.edu/~mcrafton/

Brief Course Description:

Geoffrey Chaucer is the most famous English poet associated with the Middle Ages. His poetry, in fact, is usually the only poetry that some students have been forced to read in “Old English.” (Technically, it is Middle English, but who’s counting.) There is a good reason for this. He is, as Robert MacNeil said in the PBS series The Story of English, the first writer of genius in the English language. Therefore, in this class we will read the work of this poet genius, mostly the Canterbury Tales, in its medieval context, a context that we will build out of references to other writers, but also art, architecture, religion, and material conditions of the time. On the other hand, I will argue, Chaucer is something of a modern, an early modern, to be sure. The psychologically nuanced narrators that he creates for some of his Canterbury Tales constitute really the beginnings of modern English narrative, and we will have a look at modern renditions of Chaucer to see how these beginnings are represented in a contemporary medium.

Prerequisites: ENGL 1101 and 1102.

Course Goals

• Students will become familiar with the career of a major figure in literature.
• Students will understand how that writer's work both embodies the literary tradition that precedes it and influences the literature that follows it.
• Students will appreciate the ways in which a writer's career and reputation are influenced by social, political, historical, and cultural forces.
• Students will gain an enhanced knowledge of how criticism shapes literary history.
• Students will demonstrate in both oral and written work a discipline-specific critical facility through convincing and well-supported analysis of related material.
• Students will demonstrate their command of academic English and the tenets of sound composition by means of thesis-driven analytical prose.
• Students will learn to use discipline-specific computer technologies related to the study of language such as listservs, word processing, and internet research.

Program Goals

• This course fulfills one of the departmental requirements for the completion of the English major.
• Students will develop the analytical, oral and written skills to pursue graduate study or careers in teaching, writing, business and a variety of other fields.
• Students will be able to define and pursue independent research agendas.
• This course contributes to the program goal of equipping students with a foundation in literary history and the issues surrounding literary study in contemporary culture.
• This course broadens students' desire and ability to take pleasure in their encounter with literature.

Other policies

• Intentional plagiarism, that is, the conscious adoption of someone else's writing or ideas as your own is a profanation to everything I hold important. If a student is clearly guilty of this, the result will be an F for the class and a report to the disciplinary officials of the University.  For more information, see Departmental plagiarism policies (http://www.westga.edu/%7Eengdept/Plagiarism/index.html)
• Students should be expected to come to class, prepared and able to participate.  You should consider attendance not just a passive act of occupying space, but rather more like a production assignment, like a paper. That is, attendance in class is work that is required or a performance. In order to get full credit, your presence must be known and it must be known as that of a prepared student, working to make the class an event of learning, of intellectual and artistic exchange.
• Late Work: Generally, my policy for unexcused late work is that it loses a letter grade for every day it is late. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances, but these need to be made and made well.
• MLA style should be emphasized and required on out-of-class essays. Technology
• Conferences and Outside Assistance: I will be glad to meet with you outside of class to discuss your work in this class, the writing assignments, or the texts we are studying. If you are having trouble with the material in this class or have questions and/or concerns you would like to discuss, please set up a time to meet with me
• Technology: You need to be familiar with finding sources online and other aspects of computer technology for this class. I will assist you if you have questions. Also, information can be found online at the UWG Technology / Surfing Guide: http://www.westga.edu/~techlife/

Assignments, Evaluation Procedures, and Grading Policy

Assignments:

          1. One oral presentation, 5-10 minutes, on an assigned topic.

          2. Daily discussion in class of assigned readings.

          3. Short analytical paper.

          4. Eight- to ten-page documented essay on a selected topic.

          5. Mid-term and final examinations.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE

          1. Oral presentations     20%

          2. Daily discussion         10%

          3. Short essay                10%  

          3. Research essay 20%  

          4. Mid-term          20%  

          5. Final                 20%

Essays:

There will be two essays required.  The first is what a professor of mine from Wisconsin called a working paper.  You might call it a response paper.  It is a short (3-5 pages) paper wherein you demonstrate your ability to analyze a text and create a focused and logical essay that illuminates our understanding of the text (or texts) as a result of that analysis.

          The second paper is the “classic” research paper, or research-enhanced paper (8-10 pages, but no fewer than 8 pages of text).  Here, of course, your focus is not only your analysis of texts but your ability to engage in and draw from the scholarly conversations about these texts or the contexts surrounding them and to produce an essay that further illuminates our understanding of these texts and/or contexts.  (This paper could well be built out of the work done in the two oral reports described below.)

The research paper must be on a single Canterbury Tale, and it can be on one not in Kolve. The essay should provide a reading of the tale or it should help enable a reading by elucidating something about the tale (e.g., critical history of the tale, relationship of the sources of the tale, historical environment). Some other angles for approaching a tale are the following:

1. Tracing curious words or phrases as a means to interpretation – trouthe, gentilesse, print of venus, feeling.

2. Examining a source and making an argument based upon Chaucer’s changes to the source or sources.

3. Genre: sometimes noting how Chaucer is bending the rules of a particular genre leads to insight.

4. Material history: research on things like houses, beds, clothes, armor, pens, books, schools, and food production can lead to some interesting readings of a text.

5. Meta-tale issues: one can research and provide a reading of a tale based upon its relation to an issue that spans more than one tale, e.g. marriage debate, dramatic analogy, other tales of same genre, or juxtapositions of tales.

6. Intellectual history: Looking at a tale as reflecting developments in philosophy – theology, epistemology, economics, political theory – is also a good path into a reading of a tale.

Here are the formal requirements: The paper should be about eight to ten pages long of text, using the latest MLA documentation style (no title page, double-spaced throughout, names and date in the upper left hand of first page, pages numbered after the first, works cites page, parenthetical citation except for the occasional illuminating footnote, 12 point font, 1” margins), and the research should be exhaustive relative to the topic and our library's holdings. Make extensive use of the journal Chaucer Review to see the kinds of papers that are considered acceptable. Through Galileo Chaucer Review is online now. Other journals that are highly regarded by Chaucer scholars (in addition to PMLA, ELH and such as that) are Speculum, Medium Aevum, Philological Quarterly, JEGP, Modern Philology, also some more local scholarly publications like Medieval Perspectives can also be very useful.

Advice Given upon the Prospect of Writing the First Paper for 4188

1. First of all, this is a short paper that does not require research.  As such, my strong recommendation is to take one of the shorter Chaucer poems in our book, perhaps one we did not discuss in great detail during class discussion and write an exegesis of that poem.
2. While research is not required, it is not banned either.  We have in the library several of the companion books that are very helpful for writing a short paper.
3. Another possibility for this short paper is to write it based upon your oral report.  That is, you could use the general information from that report and show how it helps us understand a poem or section of a poem from Chaucer.
4. For example, you might take an idea from an essay on fate and destiny in the Knight’s Tale and apply a similar strategy to another poem.  Give the scholar credit in the early going of the paper and then off you go.
5. It’s a short paper. The introduction should be about a half a page, no more than one page and the conclusion can be very brief, a couple of sentences, whereas the rest of the paper will be your clear expression of your most important ideas about reading the poem.  Those ideas could focus on structure or word choice or conceits (or figurative language) or historical references or religious or mythological references or tone and voice (most difficult).

Oral Reports:  The report will be a five- to ten-minute in-class presentation on a selected topic. The reporter must provide the class with an outline and any other relevant handouts on the day of delivery. The report will be graded on quality of oral delivery and the handouts, as well as the general relevance and usefulness to the class. A grading rubric for the oral presentation will be handed out before the first presentation.

SOME ORAL REPORT TOPICS: The topic selected should be appropriate to the day’s class discussion (or as much as possible).

                   Romanesque Art_________________________

                   Gothic Art_____________________________

                   Late Medieval Philosophy_______________

                   Medieval Rhetoric______________________

                   Letter Writing_________________________

                   Allegory_______________________________

                   Margery Kempe__________________________

                   Boethius and Consolation of Philosophy_____________

                   Dante__________________________________

                   Julian of Norwich______________________

                   St. Francis and followers______________

                   Boccaccio______________________________

                   Christine de Pizan_____________________

                   Medieval University Curriculum_________

                   Literary Character in Medieval Literature_______

                   Medieval Mysticism_____________________

                   Islamic Culture in Northern Europe_________

                   Medieval Satire________________________

                   Pilgrimage Literature__________________

Hildegaard von Bingen__________________

                   Medieval Sexuality_______________________

                   Privacy and Private Space_________________

                   Medieval Romance_______________________

                   Chivalry_______________________________

                   Fabliaux_______________________________

                   Genre in Medieval Literary Theory______

                   Petrarch______________________________

                   Humanism_______________________________

                   The Treatment of Jews in Medieval Europe____

                   Clothing in the 14^th century_______________

                   Nominalism____________________________

                   The Medieval City_________________________

Midterm and Final Examinations

Examinations will be based on reading assignments, course lectures, and other materials presented in class. For each examination students will be expected to know the major terms and figures, concepts and theories related to the study of the literature that will be presented in reading assignments and course lectures. Consequently, students should be thoroughly familiar with each reading assignment and be prepared to take notes during class. Examinations will include an objective, in-class component (terms, definitions, etc.) and an out of class essay component. Examinations cannot be taken late or scheduled at an alternate time unless you have a serious medical emergency or another legitimate reason for doing so. In the event that such circumstances arise, you must let me know in advance to schedule an alternate time to take the examination. Otherwise, late exams will be marked down one letter grade for each day they are taken late. I will provide you with a study guide prior to each exam.

Texts:

KOLVE: Chaucer, Geoffrey.The Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue.Eds. V. A. Kolve and Glending Olson.A Norton Critical Edition.New York: Norton, 1989.

TROILUS: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin).

BOETHIUS: Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin).

ROMANCE: De Lorris and de Meun, Romance of the Rose (Oxford).

WEB: List of links (http://www.westga.edu/~mcrafton/Bookmarks_chaucer.htm)

Daily Assignments

Date	Reading Assignment	Other assignments
W JAN 9	Intro to class and resources
M JAN 14	Chaucer’s Life and Times Short poems – handouts Lee Patterson essay on WEB; Kolve FRH Du Boulay
W JAN 16	Intellectual Background Boethius; Book of the Duchess
M JAN 21	MLK, Jr. Holiday
W JAN 23	Boethius
M JAN 28	Boethius
W JAN 30	Troilus
M FEB 4	Troilus
W FEB 6	Troilus
M FEB 11	Out sick
W FEB 13	Out sick
M FEB 18	Kolve: GP: Hoffman
W FEB 20	Kolve: GP: Donaldson, Nolan
M FEB 25	Knight’s Tale
W FEB 27	Knight’s Tale	Short Paper due on Friday
M MAR 3	Miller’s Tale; Kittredge “Dramatic Principle”	Deadline to withdraw with a W
W MAR 5
M MAR 10	Mid-Term Exam
W MAR 12
M MAR 17	Spring Break
W MAR 19	Spring Break
M MAR 24	Reeve and Cooks’ Tales and Parson’s Prologue	Image Comedy Comedy html Fragment I
W MAR 26	Wife of Bath’s Prologue, Wife of Bath’s Tale	Frag I Redux Frag I Redux html Wife of Bath Notes Same in html
M MAR 31	Friar and Summoner	Fragment III Notes Fragment III html
W APR 2	No class due to Honors’ Day
M APR 7	Clerk’s Tale	Notes on the Clerk’s Tale
W APR 9	Franklin’s Tale, Kittredge	Notes on the Franklin’s Tale
M APR 14	Nuns’ Priest’s Tale	Notes on NPT Monk Tale
W APR 16	Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale
M APR 21	Thopas and Melibee, frag.
W APR 23	Manciple’s Tale
M APR 28	Colloquium
W APR 30	Colloquium	Last day of class
W MAY 7	Final Exam