The aim of this module is to read in sequence Fragments VII to X of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in order to comprehend the issues, genres, contexts and connections that are raised among these tales. Students will be encourages to think comparatively and critically about tales and groups of tales; they will also be encouraged to speculate on the way in which the poem relates to and interprets England of the later fourteenth century.

The skill-based outcomes of this course will enable students to read Chaucer’s Middle English with a high degree of accuracy and write with sophisticated understanding of its poetic and thematic purposes; they will also be able to write comparative and contrastive essays on selected texts, understood both in terms of their medieval contexts and in terms of modern literary analysis.

The knowledge-based outcomes of this course will be: an understanding of Chaucer’s widest-ranging poem, and so medieval literature in general; the confidence to write about this major Early English writer; the capacity to undertake further studies in early literature on the basis of an understanding of the themes and styles of medieval poetry; a knowledge of the themes and styles of medieval poetry and a knowledge of the critical approaches that can be deployed in these contexts. 

There will be 1 lecture per week, which will provide information on context, critical perspectives, and textual interpretations; there will also be 1 2-hour seminar per week, which will include a substantial portion of student-led discussion, directed by a number of discussion topics which will be provided on Learning Central and in print the week before each seminar. A major focus of these seminars will be in developing students’ reading of Middle English, as well as different critical and theoretical ways of reading the tales.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF ME?

Students are expected to attend and participate in the lectures and seminars for all modules on which they are enrolled. Students with good cause to be absent should inform their module leaders, who will provide the necessary support. Students with extenuating circumstances should submit the Extenuating Circumstances Form in accordance with the School’s procedures.

The total number of hours which students are expected to devote to each 20-credit module is 200. Of these, 30 hours will be contact hours with staff (lectures and seminars); the remaining 170 hours should be spent on self-directed learning for that module (reading, preparation for seminars, research, reflection, formative writing, assessed work, exam revision).  There are also additional seminars and workshops that students are able to attend.

Students will develop increased proficiency in reading Chaucer’s English, as well as developing their understanding of its poetic and thematic purposes. They will also be able to write comparative and contrastive essays on selected texts, producing work that is appreciative of contemporary cultural contexts and modern methods of literary analysis. Employability skills include the ability to synthesise information, operating in group-based discussion involving negotiating ideas and producing clear, informed arguments in a professional manner.

Essay (1200 words) = 30%
Approx date of assessment in March

Essay (2000 words) = 70%
Approx date of assessment in May

Week 1            Introduction and Shipman’s Tale

Week 2            Shipman’s Tale

Week 3            Prioress’s Tale

Week 4            Sir Thopas and Melibee; link narrative

Week 5            Monk’s Tale and Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Week 6            Reading Week

Week 7            Second Nun’s Tale

Week 8            Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

Week 9            Manciple’s Tale

Week 10          Parson’s Tale and Retractions

Week 11          Conclusions and Questions

INDICATIVE READING AND RESOURCE LIST:

Primary Text

We will be using the Riverside Chaucer, 3^rd edn, ed. Larry D Benson (Oxford)

Other editions are available, but editions of Chaucer you may have previously used – including the Norton Chaucer – do not contain all of the tales we will be reading, while other inexpensive editions, such as the Wordsworth Chaucer edited by Lesley Coote, can use unusual manuscripts and rarely come with glossaries as exhaustive as that in the Riverside.

General sources useful for a number of tales

Valerie Allen and Ares Axiotis (eds), Chaucer: Contemporary Critical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1997)

C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson (eds), Chaucer’s Religious Tales  (Cambridge: Brewer, 1990)

Alcuin Blamires, The Canterbury Tales: An Introduction to the Variety of Criticism (London: Macmillan, 1987)

Helen Cooper, The Canterbury Tales, Oxford Guides to Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)

Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel (eds), Sources and Analogues of The Canterbury Tales, 2 vols (Cambridge: Brewer, 2002)

Janette Dillon, Geoffrey Chaucer (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993)

Roger Ellis, Patterns of Religious Narrative in The Canterbury Tales (London: Croom Helm, 1985)

Steve Ellis (ed.), Chaucer: an Oxford Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)

Alan Gaylord, ‘Sentence and Solas in Fragment VII of The Canterbury Tales: Harry Bailey as Horseback Editor’ [in shortloan]

Donald R. Howard, The Idea of the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976)

Maurice Keen, English Society in the Later Middle Ages, 1348-1500 (London: Penguin, 1960)

Peggy Knapp, Chaucer and the Social Context (London: Routledge, 1990)

Stephen Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer, Re-Reading Literature Series (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986)

Derek Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985)

Helen Phillips, An Introduction to the Canterbury Tales: reading, Fiction, Context (London: Macmillan, 2000)

S. H. Rigby, English Society in the Later Middle Ages: Class, Status and Gender (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995)

Gill Rudd, A Complete Critical Guide to Geoffrey Chaucer (London: Routledge, 2001)

R. J. Schoeck and J. Taylor (eds), Chaucer Criticism: The Canterbury Tales (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1960)