ENL 4311 “Chaucer” Fall 2004                                                     

AIMS OF THE COURSE

        The course seeks to familiarize students with the major poetry of Chaucer in its historical context (primarily, though not exclusively, Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales) and to introduce them to the principal methodological issues at stake in the modern study of Chaucer — especially the question of sources, the problem of “translation,” the nature of allusion, the representation of the body, and the status of metaphoric discourse in late medieval poetry.

       Attention will also be paid to Middle English as a language, and some effort will be devoted to “performing” Chaucer aloud. (Tapes of Chaucer's poetry read by professional Chaucerians can be ordered from a non-profit organization; details will be offered in class.) The course is not, however, a course in language as such.

TEXTS

            Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Green; The Canterbury Tales, ed. Kolve and Olson; Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Shoaf; Troilus and Criseyde, trans. Windeatt.

RESERVE LIST

            There will be a list of around 25 titles in Library East. Students may want to provide their own copies (any edition) of Vergil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Romance of the Rose, and Dante’s Inferno since limited selections will be assigned from these works.

REQUIREMENTS

        Spot quizzes (unannounced except for the notice on the syllabus); one modernization quiz (30 minutes); two in-class exams (2 hours each); one paper, 5 pages in length; no final exam; mandatory attendance — the first three (3) absences will be excused, but each absence after three, unless excused for extraordinary reasons, reduces your final mark by 10% (NB: one two-period class counts as two classes).

RAS