ENGLISH 4260: CHAUCER                                                      FALL 2016

FOURTH 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 FRIDAY DECEMBER 9; electronic submissions only (fgrady@umsl.edu).

          When you submit your essay, please indicate in the accompanying email whether you would like to receive it back on Wednesday, December 14 (the day of the final exam) with a grade and a final comment but no marginal comments, or later this month with the usual set of remarks.

 

1. Design your own topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that interests you in Troilus and Criseyde.  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 Friday, December 2.

 

2. "Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie, / As olde bookes maken us memorie, / Of hym that stood in greet prosperitee, / And is yfallen out of heigh degree / Into myserie, and endeth wrecchedly" (Monk's Prologue, ll. 1973-77). Consider Troilus and Criseyde in light of the Monk's definition of de casibus tragedy from the Canterbury Tales. Does the poem conform to the Monk's pattern? Is it a good model for interpreting the poem? Why or why not? Are there ways in which the substance of the story resists the structure of the story?

 

3. Our first set of essay prompts this semester included this one:

Starting with the role of the tercelet in the Parliament of Fowls, write an essay in which you discuss the way in which feminine desire gets represented--if it does--in Chaucer's work.  What do women (and women birds) want--if they want anything?  And what effect does acknowledging (or not acknowledging) their desires have on things [narratives, best-laid plans, the status quo, masculine intentions]?  Redefine the terms of this question in any way you need to in order to produce an essay about the status of the female characters in what we've read so far of Chaucer’s poetry (at this point, White, the tercelet, Emelye).

Write an essay about Chaucer’s representation of feminine desire that focuses on Troilus and Criseyde.

 

4 Another topic you’ve seen before:

Here's an alternate way of looking at gender issues in the Canterbury Tales: is it possible to describe what Chaucer thinks of men and/or masculinity?

The critic Jill Mann suggests (in Feminizing Chaucer [2002]) that “it is to Troilus that we should look first . . . for evidence of Chaucer’s conception of a masculine ideal,” and also that “the male hero in Chaucer is a feminized hero  (and—one more—that “feminized” ≠ “effeminate,” because the former describes a structure of experience).  That’s enough hints: write an essay about men or masculinity or the male hero in Troilus and Criseyde.

 

5. Consider the uses Chaucer makes of public spaces (e.g., temples, parliaments, parties) and private ones (e.g., bedrooms) in Troilus and Criseyde.  What kinds of events happen in each setting?  What consequences ensue?  How do the same characters act in different settings, and how are we meant to interpret or assess their actions?  In generating material for an essay on this topic, you’ll want to start with a list (or two lists) that you turn into a taxonomy—but remember that an essay is neither of those.

 

6-10. Some additional possibilities:

·        scenes and acts of reading and their importance in Troilus and Criseyde;

·        the narrator's attitude towards his sources (and his poem);

·        Criseyde's character and the way the poem constructs it;

·        an exploration of the poem's conclusion or "epilogue" (which may or may not refer to Chaucer’s Retractions”);

·        the role of the story of Troy--i.e., the Trojan war--in the romance of Troilus and Criseyde