"Age of Chaucer" - Spring '11

This course surveys the literature of late-medieval England, focusing on the so-called “Ricardian” era, corresponding to the reign of Richard II (1377-1399). In this relatively brief period, a number of outstanding poets and writers—notably Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and the anonymous author known as the “Gawain-poet,” among others—produced a remarkable variety of outstanding literary works in many genres. This output occurred amid broader traditions of medieval literary art, including religious and secular lyric, dream vision poems, the popular religious drama known as “mystery plays,” the writing of religious mystics and visionaries, the long tradition of chivalric romance leading to Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, historical chronicle, and the scurrilous comic tales known as fabliaux.

A main goal of the course will be to familiarize students with reading Middle English, the immediate forerunner of Modern English. Works in the standard London dialect of Middle English, including the poetry of Chaucer, will be read in annotated editions of the original texts. Some works in less familiar dialects, including the works of the Gawain-poet, will be read in Modern English translations.

The focus in the first half of the course will be on non-Chaucerian material in various genres. Throughout, the 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. The second half of the course focuses on Chaucer’s poetry and particularly on the Canterbury Tales, with attention to the ways in which Chaucer echoes and responds to the literary styles and themes and social events of his time.

The prerequisites for the course are EN11 and EN12 or the equivalent and at least one 100-level English literature course, or the permission of the instructor.

Students are required to attend all class meetings. If you have to miss a class for a foreseeable obligation, inform me beforehand. I also expect all students to have fulfilled the assignment and to be prepared to participate in class discussion.

For most class meetings, students will write a response paper, about a page in length, on the assigned readings. These are not graded, but are required. Responses papers are intended both to give more practice in writing and to facilitate class discussion, so late response papers cannot be accepted. Students will collect their response papers in a folder throughout the semester. At the end of the course, students will review their portfolio of response papers and submit them along with a summative essay analyzing how their views of the materials and topics have evolved over the course of the semester.

There will be two critical essays, each about 6-7 pages long, due during the semester. The first essay will address the non-Chaucerian material. In the second essay will compare and contrast any Chaucerian text to any of the non-Chaucerian texts from the first half of the course. The final exam will cover material from the entire semester.

All submitted papers should follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for formatting a paper. These guidelines can be found in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed., which is available in the Reference Section of the library and in the Writing Center. They are also summarized on pp. 119-154 of Diana Hacker’s Pocket Style Manual. When commenting on your essays, I will refer to Hacker on matters of format and style.

Papers are due at the beginning of class on the day indicated on the syllabus. Unless I have explicitly granted an extension before the due date, late papers will be penalized one-third of a letter grade per day. (A paper that would have earned a B+ will receive a B if it is one day late, a B- if it is two days late, and so on.)
Students will have the opportunity to revise and resubmit the first essay. The grade for the revised essay may go up by as much as a full letter grade. (The grade might not go up at all; it will not go down.) This is to encourage you to think of every essay as a work in progress and to revise your work as thoroughly and as frequently as possible. Papers submitted late may not be revised and resubmitted.

As you write and revise your essays, please keep in mind that there are peer-tutors in the Writing Center trained to help students of any level develop work at any stage.

Secondary critical sources are not required for the essay assignments in this course. On any assignment, however, you must fully cite any sources that you use. The source must appear in the list of works cited at the end of the essay, and each source must be cited on every occasion that you make use of its words or ideas. This is true if the source is your primary source (the text you are studying) or a critical source (an analysis of the work published elsewhere), and it is true if the source is printed or electronic, including internet sources. Follow the MLA style of in-text citation and lists of works cited described in A Pocket Style Manual, pp. 128-148. The failure to fully cite sources within your submitted work is a form of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the appropriation of ideas, data, work, or language of others and submitting them as one’s own to satisfy the requirements of a course. Plagiarism constitutes theft and deceit. Special care should be taken, when cutting and pasting materials or when paraphrasing, to cite sources correctly and to use quotation marks around exact words from source materials. Actions that result in plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional. Consequently, students must understand the concept of plagiarism. When reading, processing, or using materials from any source, appropriate documentation is always essential.

The consequences of plagiarism may range from failure on the assignment to failure for the course and university disciplinary action. Resources such as the library (ext. 2178) and the Writing Center (www.fairfield.edu/writingcenter) are available on campus to assist you in your academic endeavors. You are encouraged to take advantage of these resources.

The final grade for the semester will be calculated according to the following formula: