ENGLISH 4620: CHAUCER THIRD
LONGER ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
GRADY SPRING
2018
Essays on one of the topics below should be double-spaced
(one-inch margins/12-point type) and up to 2000 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 on Monday, May 7; electronic submissions to my email are preferred (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 Wednesday, May 2.
2. What is the place of the
Parson's Prologue and Tale in the Canterbury Tales? Are the
Parson's remarks anomalous, given what has come before, or are they consistent
with the Tales so far? Does he impose (or try to impose) a new and
different perspective on the pilgrimage and the contest, or do his remarks make
an appropriate conclusion?
3. Use one of the critical remarks on
the Pardoner’s Tale [http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/chaucer/pardonercritics.htm],
Nun’s Priest’s Tale [http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/chaucer/npt%20critics.htm]
or Parson’s Tale [http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/chaucer/parson&critics.htm]—or
the material from our “Critical Coffeehouse”--as an essay prompt (but let me
know in advance which one you’ve chosen).
4. Write an essay about the
interruptions that take place in the course of the storytelling contest. Who gets to interrupt, why do they do it, and
are there different kinds of interruption (e.g., authorized and unauthorized)? Can
interruptions have non-dramatic or extra-dramatic significance (i.e.,
explanations that go beyond one pilgrim being mad at another)?
5.
The
(a) Here’s a possibility: many tales
and links in the fragment seem to be concerned with masculinity and virility
and male reputation.
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, the Clerk’s Tale, and elsewhere
(Knight? Summoner? Merchant? Melibee? Nun’s Priest?). Does Chaucer seem to have a particular “take”
on the giving (and receiving) of counsel?
7. “…Chaucer uses food, though diversely in diverse parts of The Canterbury Tales, as a unifying shorthand for the festive elements in his poem .
. . . In The Canterbury Tales, the social production and consumption of food
provides an alternative, circular, and festive ethos which is in dialogic
relation with the linear, inner-directed, ascetic dynamics of pilgrimage.” Comment on this claim (drawn from a recently
published essay on the Canterbury Tales).
8. What function do children
perform in Chaucer's poetry? (and who counts as a
child, exactly?)