1) Chaucer,
the General Prologue
to
The Canterbury Tales.
In
Selected
Canterbury Tales, tr. J. U. Nicolson (Dover Thrift Editions), pp. 1-26.
Background readings:
-
on Chaucer, the biographical Note, pp. iii-iv in your textbook.
-
for the General Prologue: online reading, The
Medieval Estates.
ADDITIONAL READING ASSIGNMENT: When you are done reading
the
General Prologue in translation, go back and read through the
opening
lines in Chaucer's Middle English as printed in your textbook,
pp. vii-viii.
HINT: in order to understand Chaucer's Middle English,
try the following sure-fire steps:
-
Reread the modern translation of the passage several times to become fully
familiar with its meaning (pp. 1-2, ending at line 5 of p. 2, "To take
the road, as you I will apprise"). Then:
-
PRETEND that you are drunk (to lose your inhibitions -- but please note
that I do NOT advocate the actual consumption of alcoholic beverages as
part of this homework assignment!);
-
Put on your best "Monty Python" (or fake British) accent; and
-
Amuse your friends / roommates / Significant Others by reading the opening
lines of the Middle English text, pp. vii-viii, ALOUD. If you proceed
in this manner, I think you will be surprised by how much of the Middle
English you are able to understand!
Supplemental materials: a map of the Pilgrimage route
and chart of the Four Humours (useful details for interpreting Pilgrim
portraits) are on e-reserve
through the Kennedy Library (to access the .PDF file, click on the link;
you will be prompted to type in your last name and library barcode, the
14-digit number beginning 20150 on the front of your PolyCard). The same
map can be accessed through the Harvard Chaucer Pages website;
for information on the four humours, see Michael Hanley's webpage.
NOTE: While our discussion of the General
Prologue is likely to take up the full class meeting on Monday,
you are encouraged to begin the considerably longer TWO-TALE reading assignment
for Wednesday, the Knight's
Tale (Selected Canterbury Tales, pp. 27-82) AND the Miller's
Tale (Selected Canterbury Tales, pp. 83-102) if you have time
over the week-end. Be sure to BUDGET ADEQUATE TIME to get through
the two-tale Knight and Miller assignment before Wednesday's class!
REMEMBER: YOU SHOULD NOT SUBSTITUTE ANOTHER EDITION/TRANSLATION
for the Dover Thrift Editions version ordered for this class!
Text Info: Geoffrey Chaucer lived ca. 1343-1400. All
of our Chaucer readings were originally written in English rhyming couplets
in iambic pentameter (ten-syllable lines with an alternating pattern
of unstressed and stressed syllables). An "iamb" is a two-syllable unit
in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one; five such
two-syllable units form an iambic pentameter line with the stress pattern
"da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM."
-
The Canterbury Tales (taken as a whole) is a "frame narrative"
collection on which Chaucer worked during the last 14 years of his life
(ca. 1386-1400). A "frame narrative" is a work in which a
group of story-tellers tell stories to each other. The individual
stories that they tell are embedded within the narrative framework, which
in the case of the Canterbury Tales is a pilgrimage to visit the
shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
-
The General
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales sets up the narrative framework
of the collection. It also functions independently as an example
of the medieval genre known as Estates Satire. (See the online reading
The
Medieval Estates.)
ENGL
252: Great Books II: Medieval and Renaissance Literature
