Introductory description

This module allows students to read the major works of the most influential medieval poet in English alongside selections from the broader European literature that inspired him. Term 1 focuses on his early dream poems and his philosophical romance set in the Trojan War, Troilus and Criseyde. It will also introduce Chaucer’s unfinished experiment in writing a story-collection, The Legend of Good Women, and the General Prologue and manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales. Term 2 examines the range of Chaucer’s writing in The Canterbury Tales, introducing students to the important medieval genres of romance, exemplum, miracle, and fable. We will also consider Chaucer’s afterlife and some of the continuations to his work produced in Middle English and Older Scots in the century after his death.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1: Dream visions and Troilus and Criseyde
Term 2: Canterbury Tales

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of Chaucerian Middle English; of a varied selection of Chaucer’s work in the late fourteenth-century European context; and of current critical approaches to Chaucer studies
• Apply their knowledge of historical con-texts to inde-pendent reading and analysis of texts studied on the course.
• Use a range of techniques in order to analyse literary texts including close reading of primary texts, critical reading of secondary materials, carrying out searches for appropriate scholarly mate-rials relevant to the materials studied on the course.
• Effectively and accurately communicate arguments and analysis in response to questions provided by module tutor

Indicative reading list

Primary
The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by L. D. Benson (2008)
Troilus and Criseyde, with facing page Il Filostrato, ed. by Stephen A. Barney (2006)
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. by Peter Walsh (2008)
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose, translated Frances Horgan (1999)
The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions, ed. John Bowers (1992)

Secondary
C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, Chaucer’s Religious Tales (1990)
Helen Cooper, Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (1989)
Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel eds, Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales (2002)
P. Boitani and J. Mann eds, The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer (2006)
Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (1989)
Jill Mann, Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire (1973)
H. Marshall Leicester, The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Ta-les (1990)
A. J. Minnis, The Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Shorter Poems (1995)
Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (1957)
Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History (1991)
Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer (1989)
Stephanie Trigg, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern (2001)
Marion Turner, Chaucer: A European Life (2019)
Barry Windeatt, Oxford Guides to Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde (1993)

Research element

Research for assessed essays

International

Includes works written in Europe

Subject specific skills

Skills in analysis of literary texts; essay-writing skills

Transferable skills

Analytical skills; writing skills; independent research skills