David Wilson-Okamura English 62-01 Autumn 2000 Macalester College

In 1066, several decades after the turn of the last millennium, armies from the north of France invaded Britain and drove the native tradition of English poetry underground. When, after almost three hundred years, English culture finally began to emerge from the shadowy, subterranean existence to which the invasion and ensuing occupation had consigned it, the result was a vital blend of the old and the new, the provincial and the cosmopolitan, the medieval and the modern. Geoffrey Chaucer--soldier, bureaucrat, diplomat, and finally poet--is still the most famous of the new English poets, but his most famous poem, a series of narrative experiments collected under the title of The Canterbury Tales, remained in fragments at his death in 1400. This course will devote itself to exploring and reassembling this unfinished masterpiece, both in the broader context of medieval culture (both in England and on the Continent), and in the literary context of manuscript culture before the invention of the printing press.

In addition to reading most of The Canterbury Tales and one of Chaucer's dream poems, we will also read (in translation) the Romance of the Rose and selections from Boccaccio's Decameron.

Benson, Larry D., ed. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Tr. Peter E. Bondanella and Mark Musa. New York: New American Library, 1982.

Guillaume de Lorris, and Jean de Meun. The Romance of the Rose. Tr. Frances Horgan. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.

Lunsford, Andrea, and Robert Connors. EasyWriter: A Pocket Guide. St. Martin's, 1998.

Miller, Robert P. Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Hard copies of all assignments are due at the beginning of the class period. Assignments delivered after that will receive a lower grade. (For instance, an A- essay that is delivered up to 24 hours late will receive a B+, an A- essay that is delivered between 24 and 48 hours late will receive a B, and so on.)

Essays. Over the course of the semester you will submit two essays of app. 2,500-3,000 words each on topics of your choice.

• Essays should be typed and should follow the citation format specified in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Essays or The Chicago Manual of Style. (Both formats are described in Lunsford and Connors, EasyWriter.)
• When you're done, do a word count and write the result on the first page of your paper.
• Pages should be (a) stapled and (b) numbered by computer (ask someone at the computer lab if you don't know how to do this already).
• First impressions count; so do spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
• Use 12 point Times Roman (or a similar font of the same size).
• Double-space.

Discussion and Weekly Analysis. Your essays will make up approximately three fifths of your grade for this course. The remaining third will be determined by a combination of translation quizzes, memorization, class participation, and a weekly writing assignment of 500-600 words.

There will be no midterm or final exams in this course. Instead, you will submit a weekly written analysis of the previous week's discussion. Your analysis of week one will be due at the first class meeting of week two and so on.

A good analysis will summarize the content of the previous week's discussion, but it will also evaluate that discussion: what, for instance, got left out of the conversation last week, and why does it matter? Because these assignments take the place of midterm and final exams, they will be graded. This means that spelling, grammar, and punctuation count, as well as style and content.

One final note. Each written analysis will be submitted in two forms: to me, on paper, and to the members of the class, by emailing it to the course mailing list, chaucer@geoffreychaucer.org.

Midterm and Final Exams. There will be no midterm or final exams in this course.

Memorization. Part of becoming intimate with a poem is learning it by heart. To that end, I'd like you to memorize a passage of not less than 20 lines and recite it for me before the midterm vacation; there will be a sign-up sheet.

Email. Announcements and changes to the syllabus will be delivered by email.

Attendance and Reading. There is one more requirement for this course: you have to come to class and you have to do the reading. If you don't, you'll get a no credit (nc) for the semester, even if you hand in all of the graded assignments. Not coming to class = missing nine or more class meetings. Not doing the reading = failing more random reading quizzes than you pass. Note: these quizzes are impossible to fail if you have done the reading; if you haven't done the reading, or you aren't in class to take them, you may find them something of a challenge.

Everyone gets a two-day extension on one paper over the course of the semester. You choose which one. You don't need to ask me ahead of time: just hand in a sheet of paper with your name on it that says "I'm taking my extension on this paper." In the interest of fairness, however, no one will be granted a second extension.

Plagiarism is using someone else's words or ideas in such a way that a reader cannot distinguish them from your own work. As such, it is a form of cheating. If you have questions about plagiarism, please ask me about it before your paper is due; after a paper is handed in it's too late to claim ignorance. This is important: the standard penalty for a first cheating offense at Macalester College is an F on the assignment.

Office: Old Main 205 (phone 651.696.6643)

Email: wilson-okamura@virgil.org

Office hours: mwf 3:30-4:30. Extra hours as needed and by appointment. If you'd like to schedule an appointment--and I encourage you to do so if these hours don't work for you--just grab me after class or give me a phone call and we'll set up a time. If you call my office and I'm not there, do try me at home, though not after 9:00 pm, please; the phone number there is 651.699.3577.

Email discussion group for this course: chaucer@geoffreychaucer.org. This is the address to which you should submit your weekly discussion analysis in electronic form. This is also a good place to raise questions or make points that didn't get covered in class discussion.

Course materials on the web: http://geoffreychaucer.org/dswo/courses/chaucer/

Boitani, Piero, and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. PR1924.C28.1986.

Bowden, Muriel Amanda. A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. New York: Macmillan, 1948. PR1868.PB.B6.

Bryan, W. F., and Germaine Dempster, eds. Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. New York: Humanities, 1958. PR1912.A2B3.7x.

Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford Guides to Chaucer. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. PR1874.C64.1996. The 1st ed. (1991) is also on reserve: PR1874.C64.1991; there are very few difference between the first and second two editions.

Howard, Donald R. Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World. New York: Dutton, 1987. PR1905.H58.1987.

Leyerle, John, and Anne Quick. Chaucer: A Bibliographical Introduction. Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 10. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986. PR1905.L49.1986.

Pearsall, Derek. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. PR1905.P43.1992.

Rickert, Edith. Chaucer's World. Ed. Clair C. Olson and Martin M. Crow. New York: Columbia UP, 1948. DA220.R5

Ross, Thomas W. Chaucer's Bawdy. New York: Dutton, 1972. PR1903.R6.

Rowland, Beryl, ed. Companion to Chaucer Studies. 1968. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1979. PR1924.R68.1979.

Ruggiers, Paul G. A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1979. Consult library catalogue for call numbers of individual volumes.

Wallace, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. PR255.C35.1999.

Catholic Encyclopedia, The. 15 vols. New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913.
Online: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/

Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2nd ed. London: Oxford UP, 1974. BR95.O8.1974.

Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 3rd ed. New York: MLA, 1998. Z2011.H34.1998.

Langer, William L. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 5th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. D21.L27.1972.

Oxford English Dictionary, The. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. PE1625.O87.1989.
Online: http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl

Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan, eds. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. PN1021.N39.1993.

Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sir Sidney Lee, eds. The Dictionary of National Biography. 24 vols. plus supplements. London: Oxford UP, 1921-. DA28.D48.

Strayer, Joseph R., ed. Dictionary of the Middle Ages. 13 vols. New York: Scribner, 1982-1989. D114.D5.1982.

Szarmach, Paul E., et al., eds. Medieval England: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1998. DA129.M43.1998.

Wilson-Okamura, David Scott. Chaucer: An Annotated Guide to Online Resources.
Online: http://geoffreychaucer.org

Haasse, Hella S. In a Dark Wood Wandering. Tr. Lewis C. Kaplan. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1991.PT5838.H45.W613.1991. A fictionalized account of intrigue the French royal family during the Hundred Years War. I also recommend The Scarlet City: A Novel of 16th-Century Italy (1990), by the same author. PT5838.H45.S3613.1990.

Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. New York: Knopf, 1978. DC97.5.T82.1978. A real page-turner once you get past the first chapter. By far the easiest way to get a solid sense of the big issues in Chaucer's Europe.