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Tentative Schedule of Readings and Special Events

Method

All four weeks of the seminar will focus on reading and responding to the Canterbury Tales. We will generally hold four three-hour sessions per week, supplementing these sessions with five field trips to medieval sites. Over the course of the seminar, the group will read the General Prologue and twenty-four tales in the order in which they appear in the fifteenth-century Ellesmere Manuscript and standard editions of the Tales, with sessions devoted to either one long tale or two short ones. The seminar’s work will be done in the way we have found to be most effective: through deliberative close reading of the tales in Chaucer’s Middle English, with a focus on significant passages and engaged discussion of the issues raised in them. We expect all members of the seminar to be active participants in discussion.

The text we will use is Larry D. Benson’s Canterbury Tales Complete, a paperback edition that provides a good glossary, abundant explanatory notes, and helpful introductions on Chaucer’s life, works, and language. We will distribute to participants a copy of our new book, Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches, along with a collection of articles on individual tales, selected for their clarity and good ideas. The reading of secondary material will be optional, in accordance with the interests of individual participants. Participants will also have access to libraries and computer facilities at the University of London, though we caution that these facilities are not at the level typical in American universities.

Participants should be aware that we will read Chaucer’s texts in the original Middle English. For those with little or no background in Middle English, the daily reading will initially present a challenge, but one that is manageable. What typically happens when people first encounter Chaucer’s language is that they struggle with unfamiliar spellings and a few strange words, gradually start to recognize repeated key words, grow accustomed to the word forms and syntax, and soon become comfortable enough with Middle English to appreciate Chaucer’s precision while engaging with the stories and ideas. A growing mastery over the poet’s language is one of the many rewards of discovering Chaucer.

Assignments, Consultations, and Individual Projects

Participants will keep a journal/portfolio in which they respond to each day’s assignments and discussions. In addition, each participant will be required to produce a final project that may take the form of a critical essay, a teaching website, a creative response, a teaching unit, an audio or video recording, or a scholarly project. We hope to distribute copies of these projects to all participants shortly after the close of the seminar.

We will schedule two individual consultations with each participant, once during the first week of the seminar, and again toward the end of the seminar. We will be available for regular office hours throughout the seminar.

Schedule - Readings and Activities