Major Writers before 1900
Chaucer

TEXTBOOK:
Larry D. Benson, et al., eds., The Riverside Chaucer (ISBN 0395290317).

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  In this course, we will read the entire Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English.  As we read each tale, we will examine current scholarly discussion about it, looking particularly at issues of historical interpretation and reception.  Should we try to recapture the tale’s meaning as it might have been understood in Chaucer’s time?  What value or meaning does the tale have for us?  What can we learn about medieval English culture from Chaucer’s writings?  What do we learn about Chaucer’s writings if we learn more about medieval English culture and history?  What do we learn about ourselves by learning more about Chaucer and his age?

GOALS.  In terms of my goals for this course, I want you

1. to become comfortable reading Chaucer in Middle English,
2. to enjoy the playful wit and unique artistry of Chaucer’s writing,
3. to understand both Chaucer’s remoteness from us in time and his considerable relevance to the problems and issues of our age,
4. to think about how we should approach Chaucer’s writing (as 21st-century students of his 14th-century works),
5. to become familiar with some of the major issues and debates among professional Chaucer scholars today, and
6. to practice situating your own ideas about Chaucer into the existing debates among professional Chaucer scholars.

1. a mid-term exam,
2. an e-mail to everyone in class, an in-class presentation, and a paper on the supplementary reading for one class meeting (PAPER 1),
3. a longer paper (PAPER 2), and
4. a final exam.

The mid-term and final will each be worth 240 points.  The other two assignments will each be worth 260 points.  Your final grade will be based on a 1000-point scale:  A = 930-1000 points, A- = 900-929, B+ = 870-899, B = 830-869, B- = 800-829, C+ = 770-799, C = 730-769, C- = 700-729, D+ = 670-699, D = 600-669, and F = below 600.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of this class.  Class discussion constitutes important, useful preparation for the course’s graded assignments.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to recapture the dynamics and flow of discussion for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  If you positively must miss class, however, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared -- without excuses -- to the next class meeting.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216.  My office hours this semester will be 11:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays.  If you cannot see me at this time, please, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or to talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment at another time.  You may also contact me by e-mail (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.  E-mail is generally the fastest way to contact me in an emergency.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS.  For every class meeting, there is a supplementary reading assignment.  For the presenter signed up for each day, the supplementary reading for that day is what the presenter will present to class, introducing and summarizing the material in the reading for the rest of us.

Even though the presenter who is signed up for a given day has primary responsibility for reading and preparing the supplementary reading assigned that day, anyone may read the supplementary reading for any or all class meetings.  In fact, I encourage everyone to do the supplementary reading for every class meeting.

PAPER 1.  As noted above, every student in class will sign up to be the presenter for one class meeting.  As presenter, you are to complete three tasks:

1. You are to read the supplementary reading assigned for your class meeting, and at least 24 hours before class, you are to go to SOCS and send an e-mail message about the supplementary reading to everyone in class.  In the e-mail, you should briefly summarize the main points of the supplementary reading (in a couple paragraphs) and then suggest two or three discussion questions related to the supplementary reading for your classmates to consider as they prepare for class.  Keep in mind that some of your classmates may not have read the supplementary reading themselves.  They will only have your e-mail to go on.  So, your summary must be clear, concise, comprehensive, and accurate.
2. You are then to present the supplementary reading to the rest of us in class.  I recommend that you spend about 10-15 minutes summarizing one or two of the main issues raised in the supplementary reading and then open the floor for discussion of those issues.  Keep your presentation short and focused.  Once the issues are on the table, let your classmates ponder and discuss them.  But keep in mind that you are the class expert on the article for the entire class meeting -- responsible for clarifying and answering any questions about the article’s content or approach.
3. One week after your in-class presentation, you are to give me a paper.  In the paper, you should respond in some way to the supplementary reading that you presented to class.  I recommend that you address one of the issues raised in the supplementary reading, either agreeing with the reading and presenting additional evidence from Chaucer to support the reading’s claim(s) or disagreeing with the reading and presenting a thoughtful counter-argument supported with concrete evidence from Chaucer.  You should not simply summarize the supplementary reading (as you did for your e-mail posting and your in-class presentation).  You should argue a thesis in response to the supplementary reading.  Do not do additional research.  I am interested in your response to the supplementary reading, not in how published scholars and critics may have responded to it.  Your paper should be 5-7 pages long.

As for the rest of us, we will be responsible for reading your e-mail in a timely fashion and for coming to class prepared to discuss the questions you’ve raised in the e-mail.

The three portions of this assignment will not be graded separately.  You will receive a single grade for all three tasks taken together (worth 260 points total).

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES.  You and your classmates are required to e-mail everyone in class as part of the assignment for PAPER 1.  You will fulfill this requirement using SOCS.  To access SOCS, go to http://socs.tcnj.edu and, after you have logged in with your TCNJ e-mail username and password, choose this course (ENGL 42702) from the drop-down menu.  Then, when our course page comes up, click the “Email” tab.  From there, you can select individual e-mail addresses or the entire class and send a message to the addresses you’ve selected.

But SOCS only provides access to everyone’s TCNJ e-mail address.  As a result, for the sake of your classmates who will be e-mailing you in the future through SOCS, you should have mail from your TCNJ address forwarded to your favorite e-mail address if you regularly use an e-mail address other than your TCNJ account.  That way, when someone from class uses SOCS to e-mail your TCNJ address, the message will be forwarded to your other address.  To forward mail from your TCNJ address, just go to http://managemail.tcnj.edu/  and click “Mail Forwarding Manager.”  Follow the directions there to set up the mail forwarding.

PAPER 2.  For your second paper (also worth 260 points total), choose one of the supplementary readings for class but not the same supplementary reading as you presented for PAPER 1.  I recommend that you choose a supplementary reading that uses a methodology that sounds interesting to you.  Once you have chosen a supplementary reading of interest to you, choose two tales from The Canterbury Tales that seem related to one another because of a common theme, motif, or image and that can also be related to the supplementary reading you’ve chosen.  One of the tales may be the tale that the supplementary reading itself addresses, but it does not have to be.  You may find the way that Terry Jones approaches the Knight’s Tale very interesting, for example, but you may want to apply Jones’s methodology to the Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Parson’s Tale rather than to the Knight’s Tale all over again.

Once you have chosen your supplementary reading and two tales, develop a narrow, unique, interesting thesis about your three chosen texts in a paper of 10-12 pages.  Gather and present lots of concrete textual evidence from the tales to support your argument.  Be focused, specific, and detailed.  Do not do additional research.  I am more interested in hearing your thoughts than I am in what published critics and scholars may say.

The due date for your PAPER 2 will depend on when you do your in-class presentation for PAPER 1.  If you are scheduled to be a presenter on or before March 7, your PAPER 2 will be due on April 25.  If you are scheduled to be a presenter after March 7, your PAPER 2 will be due on March 7.  As a result, for those who are presenters after March 7, PAPER 2 will actually come before PAPER 1.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.  I recommend that you check this online syllabus regularly over the course of the term for changes and updates (which will be indicated in red).

Date	Assignment
M Jan 21	Introductions
R Jan 24	General Prologue (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 23-36) and “Language and Versification” (Riverside Chaucer, pp. xxix-xlv), especially the material on pronunciation.  (You might also want to check out the online glossary of the most common archaic words used by Chaucer, available at http://www.towson.edu/~duncan/glossary.html; other good web resources are “The Electronic Canterbury Tales” at http://cwolf.uaa.alaska.edu/~afdtk/ect_main.htm and “The Chaucer Metapage” at http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/.) Supplementary Reading:  Malcolm Andrew, “Context and Judgment in the General Prologue,” Chaucer Review 23 (1989), 316-337 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
M Jan 28	Knight’s Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 37-66). Supplementary Reading:  Terry Jones, “The Knight’s Tale,” in Chaucer’s Knight (Baton Rouge:  Louisiana State UP, 1980), pp. 141-216 (on electronic reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Jan 31	Miller’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 66-77). Supplementary Reading:  Lee Patterson, “‘No Man His Reson Herde,’” in Chaucer, ed. Valerie Allen and Ares Axiotis (New York:  St. Martin’s, 1996), pp. 169-192 (on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
M Feb 4	Reeve’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 77-84). Supplementary Reading:  Britton J. Harwood, “Psychoanalytic Politics:  Chaucer and Two Peasants,” ELH 68 (2001), 1-27 (available through Project Muse). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Feb 7	Cook’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 84-86). Supplementary Reading:  Paul Strohm, “‘Lad with Revel to Newegate’:  Chaucerian Narrative and Historical Metanarrative,” in Theory and the Premodern Text (Minneapolis:  U of Minnesota P, 2000), pp. 51-64 (on electronic reserve at our library). Presenter:  Laura Terebecki
M Feb 11	Man of Law’s Introduction, Tale, and Epilogue (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 87-104). Supplementary Reading:  Susan Schibanoff, “Worlds Apart:  Orientalism, Antifeminism, and Heresy in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale,” Exemplaria 8 (1996), 59-96 (on electronic reserve at our library). Presenter:  Megan Cox
R Feb 14	Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 105-122). Supplementary Reading:  S. H. Rigby, “The Wife of Bath, Christine de Pizan, and the Medieval Case for Women,” Chaucer Review 35 (2000), 133-165 (available through Project Muse). Presenter:  Kristin Bonnett
M Feb 18	Friar’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 122-128). Supplementary Reading:  Daniel T. Kline, “‘Myne by right’:  Oath Making and Intent in The Friar’s Tale,” Philological Quarterly 77 (1998), 271-293 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Lisa Hennessey
R Feb 21	Summoner’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 128-136). Supplementary Reading:  Jean E. Jost, “Ambiguous Brotherhood in the Friar’s Tale and Summoner’s Tale,” in Masculinities in Chaucer, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Cambridge:  D. S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 77-90 (on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Anthony Lardaro
M Feb 25	Clerk’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 137-153). Supplementary Reading:  David Wallace, “‘Whan She Translated Was’:  A Chaucerian Critique of the Petrarchan Academy,” in Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380-1539, ed. Lee Patterson (Berkeley:  U of California P, 1990), pp. 156-215 (on electronic reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Feb 28	Merchant’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 153-168). Supplementary Reading:  Elaine Tuttle Hansen, “The Merchant’s Tale,” in Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley:  U of California P), pp. 245-266 (on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Susan Behnke
M Mar 4	Squire’s Introduction and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 169-177). Supplementary Reading:  Carol Heffernan, “Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale:  The Poetics of Interlace or the ‘Well of English Undefiled,’” Chaucer Review 32 (1997), 32-45 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Bill Lick
R Mar 7	Franklin’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 178-189). Supplementary Reading:  R. Allen Shoaf, “The Franklin’s Tale:  Chaucer and Medusa,” in Chaucer, ed. Allen and Axiotis, pp. 242-252 (on reserve). Presenter:  Jeff Freitag PAPER 2 due (for those who are scheduled to be presenters after today).
M Mar 11	NO CLASS -- SPRING BREAK
R Mar 14	NO CLASS -- SPRING BREAK
M Mar 18	MID-TERM EXAM Physician’s Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 190-193). Supplementary Reading:  R. Howard Bloch, “Chaucer’s Maiden’s Head,” in Chaucer, ed. Allen and Axiotis, pp. 145-156 (on reserve). Presenter:  Lindsay Scarborough
R Mar 21	Physician’s Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 190-193). Supplementary Reading:  R. Howard Bloch, “Chaucer’s Maiden’s Head,” in Chaucer, ed. Allen and Axiotis, pp. 145-156 (on reserve). Presenter:  Lindsay Scarborough MID-TERM EXAM
M Mar 25	Pardoner’s Introduction, Prologue, and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 193-202). Supplementary Reading:  Carolyn Dinshaw, “Eunuch Hermeneutics,” in Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (Madison:  U of Wisconsin P, 1989), pp. 156-184 (available on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Joan Marshall
R Mar 28	Shipman’s Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 203-208). Supplementary Reading:  Peter G. Beidler, “Contrasting Masculinities in the Shipman’s Tale,” in Masculinities in Chaucer, ed. Beidler, pp. 131-142 (on reserve). Presenter:  Corianne Waller
M Apr 1	Prioress’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 209-212). Supplementary Reading:  Louise O. Fradenburg, “Criticism, Anti-semitism, and the Prioress’s Tale,” in Chaucer, ed. Allen and Axiotis, pp. 193-231 (on reserve). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Apr 4	Prologue and Tale of Sir Thopas (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 212-217). Supplementary Reading:  Angela Jane Weisl, “The Absent Woman:  Generic Stasis in the Tale of Sir Thopas,” in Conquering the Reign of Femeny:  Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance (Rochester:  U of Rochester P, 1995), pp. 70-84 (on electronic reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
M Apr 8	Tale of Melibee (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 217-239). Supplementary Reading:  Daniel Rubey, “The Five Wounds of Melibee’s Daughter,” in Masculinities in Chaucer, ed. Beidler, pp. 157-171 (on reserve). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Apr 11	Monk’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 240-252). Supplementary Reading:  Jane Dick Zatta, “Chaucer’s Monk:  A Mighty Hunter before the Lord,” Chaucer Review 29 (1994), 111-133 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Jesse Kafka
M Apr 15	Nun’s Priest’s Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 252-261). Supplementary Reading:  Richard W. Fehrenbacher, “‘A Yeerd Enclosed Al Aboute’:  Literature and History in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” Chaucer Review 29 (1994), 134-148 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Apr 18	Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 262-269). Supplementary Reading:  David Raybin, “Chaucer’s Creation and Recreation of the Lyf of Seynt Cecile,” Chaucer Review 32 (1999), 196-212 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Jim Stang
M Apr 22	Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 270-281). Supplementary Reading:  Peggy A. Knapp, “The Work of Alchemy,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30 (2000), 575-599 (available through Project Muse). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
R Apr 25	Manciple’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 282-286). Supplementary Reading:  Michaela Paasche Grudin, “The Manciple’s Tale and the Poetics of Guile,” in Chaucer and the Politics of Discourse (Columbia:  U of South Carolina P, 1996), pp. 149-163 (on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg PAPER 2 due (for those who were presenters on or before March 7).
M Apr 29	Parson’s Prologue and Tale (Riverside Chaucer, pp. 287-327). Supplementary Reading:  James Dean, “Chaucer’s Repentance:  A Likely Story,” Chaucer Review 24 (1989), 64-76 (available in the periodical stacks of our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
W May 1	PAPER 2 due (for those who were presenters on or before March 7).
R May 2	Chaucer’s Retraction (Riverside Chaucer, p. 328). Supplementary Reading:  Rosemarie P. McGerr, “Opening the Book and Turning the Page in the Canterbury Tales,” in Chaucer’s Open Books (Gainesville:  UP of Florida, 1998), pp. 131-153 (on reserve at our library). Presenter:  Prof. Steinberg
M May 6	FINAL EXAM (10:10 a.m.)

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