English 113B - Fall, 2018

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales

Class Information

Instructor: Waters, Claire
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Location: 146 Olson

Description

Chaucer’s last major work is also his most famous, for its lively variety of voices and characters, its humor, its range of genres and literary styles. We will read a substantial selection of the Tales in their original Middle English, thinking about how the Canterbury Tales reflect on the literary traditions Chaucer inherited and the social world of late fourteenth-century England, and what they can tell us about how the “father of English poetry” understood his own role as an author.

Grading

Section attendance and participation, 10%
Quizzes, 15%
Two short close reading papers, 20%
Midterm, 15%
Long paper, 20%
Final exam, 20%

Texts

Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. by Jill Mann