English 321A: Chaucer
The course will stress critical reading and group discussion of the most highly regarded works of Geoffrey Chaucer, starting out with a selection of boundary-pushing texts from the Canterbury Tales and then progressing to the more austere (if occasionally comedic) Troilus and Criseyde. We will also look at a number of Chaucer’s neglected compositions, including a wide selection of his so-called “minor” poems (both reflective and idiosyncratic) as well as his more widely celebrated “dream-vision” explorations. Class discussion will address the details of Geoffrey Chaucer’s biography, so far as it is known; historical and more broadly cultural backgrounds of his career; recent critical work on the poetry, and the Middle English language itself. There will be a midterm, a second examination in Week Nine, and one major paper.
Course Texts:
Stone, Love Visions (Penguin) ISBN 0140444084 (1983)
Coghill, Troilus and Criseyde (Penguin) ISBN 0140442391 (1971)
Beidler, Canterbury Tales (Bantam) ISBN 0553210823 rev. ed. (2006)