ENGLISH 4620 FOURTH ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

GRADY WINTER 2010

Essays on one of the topics below should be typed and double-spaced (one-inch margins/12-point type) and four to six pages long. 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 be marred by a single run-on sentence. Essays are due in class, in hard copy, on THURSDAY, MAY, 6; no electronic submissions this time.

1. Design your own topic, of suitable specificity and sophistication, about something that interests you in the Canterbury Tales we've read since the midterm . 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 Thursday, April 29.

2. Discuss the role of the host, Harry Bailly. Questions you might consider: how does Chaucer use this figure to control or manage our response to the Tales on which he comments, or to the pilgrims he calls upon? What role does Harry play in the dramatic interactions of the pilgrims themselves? Are these roles related?

3. Write an essay about Chaucer's use of fabliaux throughout the Canterbury Tales—particluarly their function in the scheme of the poem, as well as their relations with one another, the kind of perspective on the world they represent, etc.

4. Compare the confessions of the two most fully realized pilgrims of the Tales, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath.

5. What role do children play in Chaucer's poetry?

6. Already in the Parliament of Fowls we saw Chaucer interested in "gentilesse," and in the Canterbury Tales the topic ocmes up repeatedly--the Knight implicitly endorses it, the narrator tries to distinguish "gentle" tales from the Miller's ribaldry, the Wife of Bath's Tale sermonizes about it, and the Franklin makes it his abiding concern. What's the big deal? Write about the concept of "gentilesse" in the Tales we've read so far.

7. What's the function of magic in Chaucerian romance?

8. A final set of Chaucerian imitations (previous imitators ineligible):

(a) write a modern English contribution to the Monk’s Tale, i.e., at least three short de casibus tragedies in his eight-line stanza (ababbcbc), totaling at least 32 lines. Or,

(b) write a portion of an imitation of the Tale of Melibee, i.e., about four pages of proverbial citations loosely organized around a meager plot featuring a scene of advising.

9. On the unity of Fragment VII is clearly the most diverse in all the Canterbury Tales: it includes a fabliau, a pious tale of the Virgin, a failed romance, a long prose fiction of advice, a collection of de casibus tragedies, and a beast fable. Is there a thread (or threads) that holds Fragment VII together?