English 3601a: Chaucer (Essay 2 Topics)
Write a medium-lengthed essay (approx. 2100-2700 words) on some aspect one or more of the Canterbury Tales and/or Troilus and Criseyde. As always, you may supplement these texts with additional texts of your choosing. But the focus must be at least equally on at least one of our two longer texts.
Your essay should conform to my style sheet and other policies as noted on this website. Please note that I am particularly strict regarding bibliographic format, correct documentation, and proof-reading. There are very severe penalties for failure to adhere to my standards in these areas.
- To what extent can the Canterbury Tales be read as a drama of character rather than, or in addition to, a collection of short stories? How does such a reading work? Does it affect our understanding of individual tales? Are the tales reflections of their narrators’ characters as this is reflected in the General Prologue and/or the Prologues and Introductions?
- Discuss the Canterbury Tales as a coherent work of art.
- The Canterbury Tales consists largely of narrative components; and yet it is written almost entirely in verse. Discuss the use of poetic metre, form, and/or devices in the Canterbury Tales.
- Chaucer’s work often deals with stereotype—the sneaky miller, the foolish cockold, the noble knight, the effete squire, the coquettish wife, the fickle beauty. Discuss Chaucer’s use of stereotype: how does he play with and against type? _Please be careful with this topic that you research the stereotypes rather than simply assume that modern stereotypes apply to medieval characters. Good books to look at for this include Jill Mann, Chaucer: Medieval Estates Satire, D.W. Robertson, Preface to Chaucer, and, on high medieval “common knowledge” more generally, C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image.
- Compare Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde against Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato. Are the differences programmatic? What can they tell us about Chaucer’s aims?
- Is Troilus and Criseyde a tragedy? Discuss the events of the poem in light of its ending.
- One abstract view of Criseyde is that she had little choice: she is a woman subject to the power of men and state, and treated to a greater or lesser extent as an object by those who have power over her. But a reading like this might be seen as running against the grain of Chaucer’s story. Is Criseyde “to blame” in Chaucer’s work?
- Chaucer’s narrators are strongly characterised (albeit often as quite weak or silly men). Discuss the Chaucerian narrator on two or more works covered this term. Note for this essay, you may use any works covered this year as long as at least one is Troilus and Criseyde or a Canterbury Tale.
