ENGLISH
5250: CHAUCER AND GOWER
DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS FOR
Respond
to one of the following (Brosch, Farley, Gillihan, Hawley, Johnson, Lawler)
1. Theseus in the Knight’s
Tale: principled spokesman for the chivalric life in his efforts to bring
order to a chaotic world, or crypto-fascist control
freak devoted to conquest?
2. The Miller’s Tale: an expression of “peasant
consciousness,” or an example of what
Donald Howard once called “unimpersonated artistry”? [ “Obviously the Miller is
not up to providing his tale with this substratum of learned and literary
allusion: Chaucer himself provides it—he intrudes on the dramatic monologue…It
is unimpersonated artistry—it is in the tale but could not be put there by its
teller.” The Idea of the