C HALLENGING C HAUCER
Sophister Option
Dr. Brendan O’Connell ([email protected])
Woodcut for The Knight’s Tale, from Speght’s 1602 edition of Chaucer’s Works.
This module traces the impact of Geoffrey Chaucer on English literary tradition, examining
some of his most influential works alongside the works of later writers, from Hoccleve and
Henryson to Spenser and Shakespeare, who were inspired and challenged by the ‘father of
English poetry’. In particular, we will look at how late medieval and early modern writers
build on and challenge Chaucer’s authority in three distinct areas: as a poet who brilliantly
assimilated Classical and pre-Christian myths and legends into medieval literature; as a
satirist who used fiction to comment on contemporary political, religious and social
concerns; and as a writer who reflected extensively on the role of women in society.
Throughout, we will see that the reception of Chaucer’s works was profoundly shaped by
the choices of his readers, scribes and printers, and by pivotal historical events and
movements, from the usurpation of Richard II to the Reformation.
The module is structured around some of Chaucer’s most influential works and some of the
most brilliant texts inspired by them. Thus, we will consider not only Chaucer’s Troilus and
Criseyde, but also Henryson’s powerful response to it, as well as Shakespeare’s problematic
dramatic version. We will also look at some of the Canterbury Tales, including the tales of
the Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Man of Law, the Clerk, the Merchant and the Nun’s Priest.
As we shall see, late medieval and early modern responses to these texts were remarkably
diverse, and we will consider, among others texts such as Dunbar’s Tretis of Twa Mariit
Wemen and the Wedo, Spenser’s Mother Hubberd’s Tale and Shakespeare’s Two Noble
Kinsmen.
Provisional Class Schedule
Please note that the following schedule is provisional, and may be modified slightly over the
course of the academic year.
Michaelmas Term
Week One:
Introduction
Week Two:
Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale
Week Three:
Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale
Week Four:
Shakespeare, Two Noble Kinsmen
Week Five:
Chaucer, The Man of Law’s Tale
Week Six:
Reinterpreting the Man of Law’s Tale
Week Seven:
Reading Week
Week Eight:
Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls
Week Nine:
Chaucer, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Week Ten:
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale and Lydgate, The Churl and The Bird
Week Eleven:
“Protestant” Chaucer, and The Plowman’s Tale
Week Twelve:
Chaucer’s “Beast Group” and Spenser’s Mother Hubberd’s Tale
Hilary Term
Weeks One to Four: Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde
Week Five:
Henryson, Testament of Cresseid
Week Six:
Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
Week Seven:
Reading Week
Week Eight:
Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
Week Nine:
Chaucer, The Clerk’s Tale
Week Ten:
Chaucer, The Merchant’s Tale
Week Eleven:
“Misogynist” Chaucer and Dunbar’s Tretis of Twa Mariit Wemen
Week Twelve:
Conclusions
Preliminary Reading List
Detailed reading lists will be provided during the course of the module.
Editions:
Students will need to acquire an edition of Chaucer’s works by the start of term. The
standard edition is The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1988). Other editions of Chaucer’s individual works are also acceptable,
and some students may find them preferable to the Riverside. The Norton editions, for
example, provide excellent contextual and critical material.
Editions of other texts:
For the Shakespeare texts (Two Noble Kinsmen and Troilus and Cressida), you are
encouraged to buy either the Penguin editions or the Arden editions.
Dunbar, William, The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, in The Trials and Joys
of Marriage, ed. Eve Salisbury (Kalamazoo, 2002). Available online:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/tmtxt.htm
Hernryson’s Testament of Criseyde is printed in the Norton edition of Troilus: Geoffrey
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde: A Norton Critical Edition, ed. Stephen A. Barney (New York,
2006). It can also be found in an accessible online edition based on Robert Kindrick’s edition
of The Poems of Robert Henryson (Kalamazoo, 1997), which is available online at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/testfram.htm
The Plowman’s Tale can be found in Six Ecclesiastical Satires, ed. James Dean (Kalamazoo,
1991), which is available online at:
http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/dean-six-ecclesiastical-satires
Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale, in Spenser: The Shorter Poems, ed. R.A. McCabe (London:
Penguin, 1999)
Preliminary Background Reading:
Brown, Peter, Geoffrey Chaucer, Authors in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
A very readable introduction to Chaucer and his period, including social, political,
intellectual and literary contexts.
Lerer, Seth. Chaucer and His Readers: Imagining the Author in Late-Medieval England.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Influential account of 15th century responses
to Chaucer.
The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, ed. by Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, 2nd edn
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003 [1986]).
The Oxford Guides to Chaucer are popular and reliable. It may be worth purchasing Helen
Cooper, The Canterbury Tales (Oxford, 1989) and/or Barry Windeatt, Troilus and Criseyde
(Oxford, 1992)
Language:
There is a useful introduction to Chaucer’s Language in the Riverside, and a full and
accessible account in Simon Horobin’s Chaucer’s Language (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007).
There is also an excellent website called METRO (Middle English Teaching Resources
Online).