ENGLISH 4260: CHAUCER FALL 2016

THIRD ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

Essays on one of the topics below should be double-spaced (one-inch margins/12-point type) and five to six pages (±1500 words) in length. Be sure to refer as helpfully and specifically as possible to the texts upon which you're basing your argument--and be sure to have an argument or thesis. Your essay should have an original title, and it should not use the word “portray.” Essays are due by midnight on TUESDAY NOVEMBER 15; electronic submissions only (fgrady@umsl.edu).

1. Design your own topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that interests you in the Canterbury Tales we've read. A brief consultation with the instructor is required for this option; talking with one another is recommended, too, and I’d like to receive a paragraph or email describing your topic by Thursday, November 10.

2. What happens in the Canterbury Tales when men look at women who don’t know, at first, that they’re being looked at?

3-5. Use one of the critical remarks on the Franklin’s Tale, the Pardoner’s Tale, or the Nun’s Priest’s Tale as an essay prompt (but let me know in advance which one you’ve chosen).

6. “Werk al by conseil, and thou shalt nat rewe,” says Nicholas to John in the Miller’s Tale—in a scene in which he is clearly trying to put one over on the poor old man. Discuss the fictions of advice and scenes of advising we’ve seen in the Tales (in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Knight Nun’s Priest?). Does Chaucer seem to have a particular “take” on the giving (and receiving) of counsel?

7. Compare the confessions of the two most fully realized pilgrims of the Tales, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. (NB: “compare” = “make an argument about,” “develop a thesis concerning”)

8. Already in the Parliament of Fowls we saw Chaucer interested in "gentilesse," and in the Canterbury Tales the topic comes up repeatedly--the Knight implicitly endorses it, the narrator tries to distinguish "gentle" tales from the Miller's ribaldry, the Wife of Bath's Tale sermonizes about it, and the Franklin makes it his abiding concern. What's the big deal? Write about the concept of "gentilesse" in the Tales.

9. What's the function of magic in Chaucerian romance?

10. Kittredge’s “Marriage Group” includes the tales of the Wife of Bath, Clerk, Merchant, and Franklin. But marriages are represented in the tales told by several other pilgrims: the Knight, the Miller, the Reeve, and the Nun’s Priest come to mind. Write an essay about Chaucer’s treatment of marriage in the non-“Marriage Group” tales.