Chaucer

Fall 2006

Class meetings:  10:00-11:15 AM in the Billy Hobbs Room, 2^nd Floor,Weltner Library

Dr. Victoria L. Weiss

Office: Hearst  313

Phone: Ext. 8393 (404-364-8393)

vweiss@oglethorpe.edu

Office Hours:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 1:00-3:00

Tuesday, Thursday: 1:15-3:00 PM

 [2:00-3:00 on Tuesday in Café Oglethorpe in Goodman Hall]

                                                                                                . . . .and by appointment

Goals for the Course:  

• To learn to read and appreciate the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the first great English poet, in his original language;
• To enjoy the rich and varied nature of his works and his contributions to English verse forms;
• To appreciate why he is called the “Father of English.”

Description of the Course:

As you are no doubt aware, writing as he did at the end of the fourteenth century, Chaucer’s Middle English is different from our modern English.  This simple fact makes the first few weeks with his work a little more taxing than is typically the case in encountering a new writer in an ordinary English class.  But that said, you will be amazed at the speed with which you are able to master the written, aural, and oral language and meaning of Chaucer.  You will be especially amazed at the richness of the work, which, in my experience, always exceeds students’ expectations.  Like most truly great writers, he is a man of his time but also a man far ahead of his time.  Speaking for myself, I can tell you that he has helped me appreciate the truly human capacities and qualities inherent in all human beings of whatever time and place. 

In inviting you to share this appreciation with me, let me begin by offering a couple of words of advice.  Put some time in at the beginning of the course, learning to read and speak the language.  It’s not really that different from our own.  I sometimes like to tell students it helps to think of it as modern English written by a really bad speller who is a terrific versifier.  You will get the hang of it quickly if you make up your mind not to give up.  The exercises that Professor Larry Benson, editor of our text, developed for his own students and available to us on the web, make a wonderful tutorial, and we will take advantage of these in learning the language ourselves.  Once you’ve got the hang of it, you will be amazed and awed by Chaucer’s talent and the incredible richness and delight to be found in his work.

The course will begin with his justly famous The Canterbury Tales (we will read most of these), followed by some of Chaucer’s short poems, and conclude with his great work, Troilus and Criseyde.

Evaluation:

Your grade in this course will be determined by your performance on three papers, a final exam, periodic quizzes (both oral and written), homework, and an oral report:

                        Papers and final exam (20% each)        = 80%

                        Oral report*                                         =  5%

Homework and quizzes§                      = 15%

Late papers are lowered one half letter grade for every calendar day they are late.  Missed quizzes may not be made up. 

*The scholarship on Chaucer, as you might imagine, is VAST.  Oral reports (each student will do one) give the reporters and other members of the class an opportunity to learn about both the known sources and analogues of Chaucer’s works and a sampling of scholarly opinion on his work.  More info about the specifics of these reports will be forthcoming in class.

§ Information about Chaucer on the web, including audio files of professors speaking Middle English, is voluminous.  The best starting places are these two sites:

The Harvard Geoffrey Chaucer web page (developed and maintained by Prof. Larry D. Benson, editor of our text and longtime Chaucerian at Harvard): http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/

The Chaucer MetaPage: http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/

(This page, initiated by Larry Benson and others, is intended to be a directory to all that is available on the web about Chaucer and things Chaucerian.)

On occasion, assignments will direct you to one of these sites.  (See day-by-day calendar below.)

Attendance:

• Those who miss six (6) classes (i.e., three weeks of class) can expect to have their course grade lowered.
• Those who miss ten (10) classes or more (the equivalent of five weeks of the term) will be assumed to be no longer taking the course and can expect a final grade of FA.

Skill with Chaucer’s English and a developing sense of what he is about as a poet depend upon your participation in class.  Plan to attend class regularly.

I follow University policy on withdrawal from a course.  The last official day to withdraw with a “W” grade is November 3rd.  The absolute last day to withdraw without incurring an “F” grade is November 17^th.

Honor Code:

I assume that together we form an intellectual community that has honesty as its common bond.  As a result, I take the honor code and violations of it very seriously.  Homework assignments and your oral report will require that you make substantial use of the library collection of books and articles about Chaucer and his work.  The availability and utility of such works are the primary reasons why this class meets in the library, close to the collection.  As you prepare work for this course, please keep in mind the following definitions taken directly from the Oglethorpe University Honor Code:

Cheating:

1. The unauthorized possession or use of notes, texts, or other such materials during an examination.
2. Copying another person’s work or participation in such an effort.
3. An attempt or participation in an attempt to fulfill the requirements of a course with work other than one’s original work for that course.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism includes representing someone else’s words, ideas, data, or original research as one’s own, and in general failing to footnote or otherwise acknowledge the source of such work.  One has the responsibility of avoiding plagiarism by taking adequate notes on reference materials, including material taken off the internet or other electronic sources, used in the preparation of reports, papers, and other coursework.

Incorporating the ideas of others into work you submit as your own without acknowledging your source is a violation of the honor code and will be handled accordingly. 

I do not grade work which has not been pledged.  All written work for the course must bear the following honor code statement, signed using your student number:

I pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.

                                    [your student number]

[Please remember to use your student number rather than your name to identify your work.  I don’t like knowing whose paper I’m grading!]

Incompletes:

The grade of incomplete is given only in rare and extraordinary circumstances.  Please consult the University Bulletin for specific information regarding incompletes.

Text(s):  Benson, Larry D., ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3^rd edition.

               Davis, Norman, comp., A Chaucer Glossary. (optional)
               Additional texts are available in my area of the Library Reserves on Petrelnet.

Aug. 29            Introduction

Aug. 31           --Consult the following web page: http://courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/less-0.htm (“Teach Yourself to Read Chaucer”), and work your way through Lessons 1-5.  To get the most out of these exercises, please make sure that you are using a computer that includes sound and that you are working in a space where the use of sound will not disturb others!

 --Listen carefully to the various readers read in Middle English Chaucer’s “TRUTH: Balade de bon Conseyl,” (the first portion of which is read by Professor Larry Benson, the editor of our text). 

-- Read “Language and Versification,” (second column of p. xxix to first column of p. xxx; “Inflections,” pp. xxxiv-xxxviii; and “Versification,” pp. xlii-xlv.  Read (without focusing too much on details) “Some Features of Syntax and Idiom,” pp. xxxviii-xlii. 

--Begin reading in Middle English the “General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, pp. 23-36.  Don’t delay long on individual words or lines that puzzle you, for you’ll be reading most of this section later when you get to the individual tales.  But do try to get the general flavor of the meaning, the sound, and the rhythm.  Read a passage or two aloud to a friend, a significant other, a classmate, or a pet.

--Memorize the Middle English words and their meanings that appear on the “Word List” in your packet.

Sept. 5             --Finish reading the “General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, pp. 23-

36 .

--Read “Thomas Beckett,” F.R.H. DuBoulay’s essay, “the Historical Chaucer,” “Appendix C: The Order of The Canterbury Tales,” and ”Appendix D: Chaucer’s Reputation” (both appendices from Donald R. Howard’s Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World).

--Quiz today on vocabulary (i.e., the meaning of words).

--Sign up for oral quiz to be given individually in my office.  For the oral quiz, be prepared to do the following:

1)   Recite from memory six favorite lines from the “General Prologue.”

                                    2)   Read lines 1112-22 from “The Knight’s Tale,” p. 39.

3)   Read some other lines from “The Knight’s Tale,” lines which I will select at the time of the quiz (surprise!).

Sept. 7             Read “The Knight’s Tale,” pp. 37-66.  (Don’t forget to reread his profile in the

“General Prologue.”)  Complete Lesson 8 on the “Teach Yourself to Read Chaucer” web page at http://courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/less-8.htm

Sept. 12           Continue discussion of “The Knight’s Tale.” Read “The Miller’s Tale,” pp. 66-77.  Complete Lesson 9 on the “Teach Yourself to Read Chaucer” web page at

http://courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/less-9.htm

Sept. 14           Read “The Reeve’s Tale” and “The Cook’s Tale,” pp. 77-86

Read Introduction, “Chaucer’s Life,” pp. xv-xxvi and “Life of Chaucer” on the Harvard Chaucer Page at http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/

At the same web site, click on and read “Chronology” (skim links). Read “Richard II,” “The Peasant’s Revolt and the King’s Marriage” (from Howard’s Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World), “Life in London,” “The Black Death,” and “Events in England, 1386-1391” (from Derek Pearsall’s The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer), and “Some Chaucerian, Literary, and National Events.”

Sept. 19           Read “The Prologue and the Man of Law’s Tale,” pp. 87-104.

Sept. 21           Read “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” pp. 105-22. 

Also read “Cecily Champain,” (from Howard’s Chaucer:  His Life, His Works, His World); “Cecily Champain; Chaucer and Women; Philippa Chaucer,” from Pearsall’s, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer, and—the most recent word on the subject of whether or not Chaucer raped Cecily Champain—an excerpt from Christopher Cannon’s “The Lives of Geoffrey Chaucer,” from The Yale Companion to Chaucer.

Christopher Cannon is the discoverer of the Chaucer document in which reference is made to Chaucer’s pleading guilty to the crime of raptus.  The text of his original article, “Raptus in the Chaumpaigne Release and a Newly Discovered Document Concerning the Life of Geoffrey Chaucer,” which originally appreared in the journal Speculum is available in its entirety at http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/varia/life_of_Ch/chris.htm.

Sept. 26           Read “The Friar’s Tale,” pp. 122-28; and “The Summoner’s Tale,” pp.128-36.

Sept. 28           Catch-up day.

Friday, September 29th         Paper One due in my office by 3:00 PM.

Oct. 3              Read “The Clerk’s Tale,” pp. 137-53.

Oct. 5              Read “The Merchant’s Tale,” pp. 153-68.

Oct. 10                        Read “The Squire’s Tale,” pp. 169-77; and “The Franklin’s Tale,” pp. 122-28.

Oct. 12                        Read “The Physician’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale,” pp. 190-202.

Oct. 17                        Continued discussion of “The Pardoner’s Tale.”  Read “The Shipman’s Tale,”

 pp. 203-08. 

Wednesday, October 18^th      Paper Two in my office  by 3:00 PM.

Oct. 19                        Read “The Prioress’ Tale,” pp. 209-13.

Oct. 24                        Read “Sir Thopas,” pp. 213-17; and “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” pp. 252-61.

Oct. 26                        Continued discussion of “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” and “the Canon’s

Yeoman’s Tale,” pp. 270-81

Oct. 31                        More  on “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale,” and read “The Manciple’s Prologue

and Tale,”  and “The Parson’s Prologue,” pp. 282-88.

Nov. 2             Read Chaucer’s “Retraction, ” p. 328.  Wrap up on The Canterbury Tales.  Read “Chaucer’s Last Months” and “Chaucer’s Descendants” from Pearsall’s The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Read “To Rosamunde,” p. 649; “Gentilesse,” p. 654; “Truth,” p. 654; “Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan,” p. 655; “Lenvoy de Chaucer de Bukton,” p. 655; “Chaucer’s Wordes unto Adam, His Owene Scriveyn,” p. 650; “The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse,” p. 656.

Friday, November 3^rd            Paper Three due in my office by 3:00 PM.

Nov. 7             Read Troilus and Criseyde, pp. 471-84

Nov. 9             Read T & C, pp. 484-97.

Nov. 14           Read T & C, pp. 497-513.

Nov. 16           Read T & C, pp. 513-26.

Nov. 21           Read T & C, pp. 527-37.

Thanksgiving Holiday

Nov. 28           Read T & C, pp. 538-52.

Nov. 30           Read T & C, pp. 553-65.

Dec. 5              Read T & C, pp. 565-77.

Dec. 7              Read T & C, pp. 577-85.