Age of Chaucer

Catalog description

A survey of the literature of late-medieval England, focusing on its richest period, the second half of the fourteenth century - the age of Chaucer and his contemporaries. Students will gain access to the Middle English language, and study examples of the main genres of medieval literature, including religious and secular lyric, mystical writing, courtly romance, religious drama, chronicle, and comic narrative. Literature will be considered within its social and historical contexts, with special attention to representations of social order, and challenges to that order, notably the Great Rebellion of 1381.