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Students in this course will read most of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English, considering such "traditional" topics in medieval criticism as political and social history, theology, chivalry, courtliness, source studies, meter, and architectonics, as well current research in the field embracing feminism, cultural materialism and other theoretical approaches. Opportunities for the exploration of topics of all kinds will arise in class discussions, oral reports, and in the seminar paper. Near the end of term, we will have a session on medieval manuscript studies at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. Students will be required to participate actively in this excursion by completing an exercise on paleography and codicology, to be begun in class and finished (for the most part) at the library.
Since the instructor will not be present until half way through the semester, we'll "meet" in cyberspace for several weeks before the class actually begins on 18 May. Please feel free to contact Prof. Hanly with any questions at hanly@wsu.edu. This website will be our "headquarters"; I'll be updating it and changing it at regular intervals, so please have a look from time to time.
ASSIGNMENTS FOR 29/3-14/5 (= until I arrive): We'll concentrate on the Canterbury Tales listed below; I may add or subtract some (according to my own whims or to your suggestions), but these make up a good basic list. I shall ask you to read them in advance, in Middle English (of course, reading it with the help of a modern translation is perfectly acceptable--note the Penguin Books version in "Texts," below). Any other reading before the first day of the seminar will be up to the student--in consultation with me--and will be pointed toward the topics of seminar papers and reports. And so, let's read the following tales:
The General Prologue
Knight's Tale
Miller's Tale
Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
Clerk's Prologue and Tale
Friar's Prologue and Tale
Summoner's Prologue and Tale
Franklin's Prologue and Tale
Shipman's Tale
Pardoner's Introduction, Prologue, and Tale
Nun's Priest's Tale
Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas
Chaucer's Tale of Melibee
Parson's Prologue; excerpts from Parson's Tale
Chaucer's Retraction
| Janine Spiegel | Andreas Bosshard | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christoph Buehler | Carolina Pianca | |||
| Claudia Kovalik | Irene Celeiro | |||
| Katja Hauser | Martin Fischer | |||
| Nicole Kamm | Christa Niederberger | |||
| Katrin Graf | Wei Peng | |||
| Valerie Ochsner | Kirsty Furrer | |||
| Peter Portik | Regula Gurtner | |||
| Sonja Künzli | Ursina Schmid | |||
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Here is a list of books found in Uni Zürich libraries concerning The Canterbury Tales, the poetry of Chaucer in general, or other pertinent issues. Some of these texts will be culled to form the "Präsenzgestell," but for now they're all up for grabs.
"Annotated and Indexed Bibliography of the first 30 years of The Chaucer Review. From "Abraham" to "Zitter," scholars have published nearly 800 articles in the first 30 volumes of the premier Chaucer journal, and they are all listed and summarized here. The subject index is searchable using the Find function of your browser, and you can use the article numbers there to find the essays you want in the bibliography. For example, if you go to the index and search for "anti-Semitism," you will find eight entries, numbered 19, 139, 268, 279, 324, 377, 747, 798. In the bibliography, search for 268, and you will find Frank, Hardy Long. "Seeing the Prioress Whole." 25 (1991): 229-37 with a summary of his argument. The bibliography is a large file and takes a while to load, but it is a great resource." (thanks to Alan Baragona for this description).
A collection of electronic reviews of books that can be both browsed and searched, covering the entire realm of medieval studies. Very useful.
The site describes itself in this fashion: "The Essential Chaucer is a selective, annotated bibliography of Chaucer studies from 1900-1984. It was first published in 1987 by G. K. Hall and Mansell Publishers Limited. The bibliography is divided into almost 90 topics, including themes, techniques, and individual works by Chaucer."
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1. Links Related to Chaucer and Medieval Studies
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3. Prof. Edwin Duncan's Electronic Edition of the General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales
1. Required
The only required text
is Larry Benson, et al., eds., The Riverside Chaucer (1988), new
edition, paperback.
2. Recommended
There are several good
collections of essays, but perhaps the best place to start would be Helen
Cooper's volume in the "Oxford Guides to Chaucer" series (Oxford
University Press, 1996).
So many decent Modern English
translations of the Tales are in print that it's hard to recommend
a single one, but the prose version by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Books, 1951;
reprinted 2000) could well be the cheapest and most easily available.
Michael Hanly's Home Page (includes links to
other course websites, etc.)
Englisches Seminar, Universität Zürich
