Medieval Road Trip: Reading and Writing with Chaucer

Catalog description

This Critical-Creative Seminar reads Chaucer’s pathbreaking The Canterbury Tales to consider whether stories that entertain us can also make us better humans, how we should react when stories offend us; what power short stories have to challenge hierarchies and inequalities, and finally, how translating, adapting, and critiquing old stories can fashion communities of readers and writers across time. Students will have a chance to experiment with Chaucer’s language and meter and ultimately contribute either a critical or a creative piece. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of current offerings