Choose one of the tales from The Canterbury Tales that we did not read for class.  Write a five-page paper in which you analyze your chosen tale in terms of what it reveals about its teller or in terms of how it relates to one other pilgrim's tale.

Hints: To help you narrow your choice, I recommend that you choose to focus on the Prioress, the Pardoner, or the Nun's Priest.  Their tales are probably the three most interesting in the collection (after the ones we're reading together for class).  Brave souls might want to try the Man of Law's Tale, the Monk's Tale, the Reeve's Tale, the Friar's Tale, or the Summoner's Tale.  I would also recommend that you analyze your chosen tale much as we are analyzing the tales that we're discussing in class.  We are reading the Knight's Tale with an eye to what it reveals about the Knight's character and about the company of characters Chaucer has created; we're reading the Miller's Tale in relation to the Knight's Tale with an eye to what kind of response it might represent to the Knight's view of the world; we'll do the same with all the other tales we discuss.  If the teller of your tale has a portrait in the General Prologue (the Nun's Priest, for example, does not), look back at the portrait for insight into the character.  If your chosen tale has a prologue or epilogue (or both), look there for insight into the teller's character and purpose in telling the tale.  If the tale you've chosen seems to respond to some of the themes in one of the tales we've discussed together in class, explore shared themes and the relationship between the tales/tellers.

Choose one short poem from our textbook by one of the following Renaissance poets:

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey,
Christopher Marlowe,
George Gascoigne,
Sir Walter Raleigh,
Isabella Whitney,
Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke,
Elizabeth I,
Richard Barnfield,
Lady Mary Wroth,
Robert Herrick,
George Herbert,
Richard Lovelace,
Henry Vaughan,
Andrew Marvell, or
Katherine Philips.

Compose a five-page paper in which you analyze the poem you've chosen and relate it to some aspect of Renaissance culture that we have touched on in class.  How is the poem you've chosen typical (or atypical) of the Renaissance?  How does it fit into the larger scheme of things?  What does it add to the Renaissance development of literary forms, motifs, themes, genres, and/or ideas?