A fairy tale that begins with a rape? Sex in a pear tree? Monks, sex, and money? Dividing a fart into twelve shares? What do women really want most? How is a woebegone lover like a pike in jelly? If these questions scratch an itch, then you will want to travel to the fourteenth century through the medium of the Canterbury Tales and Chaucer's shorter verse. While late medieval England is in many ways alien and unfamiliar, the desires, fears, and uncertainties we encounter in Chaucer's universe are somehow oddly familiar, and in Chaucer we see it through curiously modern, even postmodern, eyes.
We will begin with Chaucer's "Short Poems," many of which are believed to be from early in his career. We will read all of the Canterbury Tales and will supplement our reading with background information and discussion in Helen Cooper's Oxford Guides to Chaucer book on the Canterbury Tales. Frequent reference will be made to texts by Chaucer that we will not have time to read, especially The Legend of Good Women.
Graded work
will consist class participation, online Scholar quizzes, a term project or 3
response essays, and midterm and final exams (see
Requirements).