ENGLISH 4260: CHAUCER SPRING 2018
IMITATION ASSIGNMENTS (Due Wed May 2)
1. Rhyme Royal Imitation
Write three rhyme royal stanzas in imitation of the opening of the Clerk’s Tale, introducing both a setting and a character of your choosing. The verse should be in modern English iambic pentameter, and each stanza should follow the ababbcc scheme of the Tale.
You’ll want to look closely at those opening lines and the way that the sentences are arranged—where the pauses and stops are, and how subordination (where, save, as, that) and coordination (and) and prepositional phrases (doun, bothe) help the syntax work smoothly.
My advice would be to pick a fictional character and a place that you’re very familiar with (and ideally that other people will have heard of!), rather than trying to invent from scratch. But maybe that’s just because I lack imagination.
No additional
essay is required this time—which means that making your verse as perfect as
possible is the goal!
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2. Melibee Imitation
Write a portion of an
imitation of the Tale of Melibee, i.e., about three pages of (contradictory)
proverbial or authoritative citations that would feature as part of a larger
debate or scene of advising. The exchange can be balanced or one-sided—Melibee is both at different points—and it
might be best to avoid “controversial” topics in favor of more conventional
ones, which are likely to produce a larger repertoire of famous or infamous
remarks. A searchable collection of sayings—e.g. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations—would be a valuable resource for
this project.
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3. Monk’s Tale imitation
Write a modern English addition to the Monk’s Tale, i.e., two to three short de casibus tragedies
in his eight-line stanza (ababbcbc), totaling at
least 32 lines/4 stanzas. My advice would be to select your victims of Fortune
from modern examples (celebrities are good), though historical figures are
eligible too, provided that the stories are—like the Monk’s—more or less
accurate.
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4. Parson’s Tale imitation
Chaucer’s Parson loves to anatomize; he comes up
with sixteen different sub- species of Pride, “and many another twig that I kan nat
declare.” Write a 3-page anatomy of some modern practice or concept, following
the model of Chaucer’s account of the Seven Deadly Sins in The Parson’s Tale. You
can choose to update one of the sins (how does Pride manifest itself online,
you might ask?) or pick some other social practice that lends itself to
schematization. No instruction booklets, please.