EN211: The Age of Chaucer
First Essay Assignment
The first essay is due by noon on Monday, November 12. Papers should be placed in the box on my office door, Donnarumma 120.
The essay should be about 6-7 pages long. You may write on any of texts we have read thus far, choosing from one of the following themes:
Social Visions: Compare and contrast the visions of society and social order in Boccaccio, Gower, and/or Langland. What, according to these authors, is society ideally? What is it really? What do instances of extreme stress reveal about social order? Do they envision alternative organizations of society that might be preferable to the conventional order? Alternatively, you could analyze tales told by Boccaccio, Gower, Langland, or Chaucer, and explain what they see as the roles of storytelling, literature, or art, and how they relate to society.
Chivalric Romance: Analyze any one, or compare and contrast any two, of the chivalric romances that we have read: Malory's Tale of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guenivere; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Chaucer's Knight's Tale. (As these are relatively long works, if you compare and contrast two romances you will have to be particularly precise and focused in choosing your theme and stating your thesis.) Some of the topics you might consider:
Whichever topic you choose, it is extremely important that you have a clear, central thesis. This thesis should be stately clearly and concisely at the beginning of the essay, and that everything in the essay be dedicated to demonstrating this thesis using specific evidence from the text or texts. Note that the thesis of the essay is the one, central idea that you want to convince the reader of. A good thesis is one that can be proven (that is, there is objective evidence in the texts to support it) and that needs to be proven (that is, it is not obvious or self-evident). You therefore need to avoid vagueness and state the thesis with as much specificity as possible.
Please note that no secondary critical sources are required for this essay. You are, of course, free to consult any sources that you wish, but I am primarily interested in your close engagement with the primary texts. Remember that it is absolutely essential to cite all sources, primary or secondary, on every occasion that you use their words or ideas, and to provide full bibliographical information for all sources.
Papers should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style of citation and documentation of sources. The guidelines for MLA Style can be found in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, which is available in the Reference Section of the library and in the Writing Center, but they are also summarized on pp. 121-158 of Hacker & Sommers, A Pocket Style Manual. When commenting on your essays, I will refer to Hacker & Sommers on matters of format and style.