Chaucer

Catalog description

This course surveys the literary career of Geoffrey Chaucer, perhaps the most celebrated English-language poet of the medieval ear. The course primarily examines Chaucer's own writings, with consideration of the several international authors and traditions that informed his own literary productions. Selections may vary, but students will read texts from across Chaucer's career, including from major works like Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. Readings from Chaucer's sources and models may include translated selections from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy or from Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose, and/or examples from relevant literary genres such as romance, fabliaux, beast fable, sermon, tragedy, and exemplum. Accordingly, students will develop a knowledge and appreciation of how Chaucer shaped (and was shaped by) his continental influences and the ways in which he developed a poetic tradition in English that proved deeply influential for many centuries.