MDVL 580CChaucer and Medieval Ecologies

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MDVL 580C Chaucer and Medieval Ecologies - Chaucer's narrative poetry was heavily shaped by medieval philosophical approaches to the natural world so that his texts consequently exhibit an ecological ethics. The place of the human in relation to nature is consequently negotiated and re-negotiated throughout the Chaucerian corpus. In this course, we will construct an ecocritical methodology for the study of Chaucer's poetry. We will read Chaucer's dream visions, Troilus and Criseyde and the Canterbury Tales in Middle English; we will also read Ovid's Metamorphosis, as well as ancient and medieval texts on Nature and ecocritical theory. Requirements will include one short paper, one long research paper, and one oral report.