ENGLISH
201: CHAUCER’S CANTERBURY TALES SECOND
ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
GRADY SPRING
2015
Essays
should take up one of the topics below (double-spaced/one-inch margins/12-point
type) and be five to six pages (±1600 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 “relatable.” Essays are due on SATURDAY, MAY 9 (5 PM); electronic submissions are strongly
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 6.
2. Write an essay about the women we've
encountered so far in the Tales
(remembering that one of them, the Wife of Bath, is a pilgrim rather than a
character in a tale). Was Chaucer really, as the 15th-century Scottish
Chaucerian Gavin
3. 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?
4. Reread
John Gower's "Tale of Florent" from his Confessio Amantis (http://www.courses.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/gower/gow-flor.html). Then write an essay comparing the ways that
Chaucer and his friend and fellow poet Gower treat the "loathly lady"
tale. (NB: Compare-and-contrast topics need a thesis too!)
5. John
Gower's "Tale of Constance" from his Confessio Amantis (available via this link:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/gower/gow-cons.html) is one of the major sources for
Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale. Write an essay comparing the ways that
Chaucer and his friend and fellow poet Gower deal with the genre of the
hagiographical romance. (NB: Compare-and-contrast topics need a
thesis too!)
6. The
7. The Wife of
8. Discuss the Wife of Bath’s role
in the Canterbury Tales by comparing
at least two of the critical essays on the Wife posted on Moodle (they’re in
the “Wife of Bath” folder).
9. "For patriarchy's scandalous
secret...is that it had to be obsessively vindicated--often in grotesque or
brutal ways, as in witch-hunting or wife beating...Patriarchy had to deal in
cautionary tales and mete out surplus repression, because it was riddled with
inner anxieties. And all this...stemmed
from the fact that it was far from obviously 'natural'..." Comment on
these sentiments (borrowed, I should admit, from a TLS review of a book about 18th-century life) with reference to The Canterbury Tales.
10. A number of critical remarks
about the Man of Law’s Tale can be
found here: http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/chaucer/MLT%20critics.htm. If one of them ignites your critical
faculties, communicate with me about how to turn the encounter into an arguable
essay topic.