Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue

But none the less, while I have time and space,

Before my story takes a further pace,

It seems a reasonable thing to say

What their condition was, the full array

Of each of them as it appeared to me,

According to profession and degree’

and what apparel they were riding in;

And at a Knight I therefore will begin.

And so our narrator (Chaucer the character) methodically progresses through the ranks of his fellow pilgrims, beginning with the one who ranks highest in the social hierarchy. For Chaucer, appearance and character are interconnected.

In your small groups, study the descriptions of your assigned pilgrims and prepare to present to the class brief sketches, including such details about your characters as:

• their worldly circumstances, their social rank

• their dispositions and personalities

• their behavior and very mode of being

• their physical attributes and appearance

• their clothing, key possessions, weapons, accessories

• their social, psychological, spiritual attributes

Keep an eye out for what each pilgrim’s description could represent about him or her.

In addition to details, can you detect any irony or satire on the narrator’s or Chaucer’s part?

In other words, what about their appearance, behavior, tendencies, etc seem at odds with their profession, what they say, etc.

Create a single TRADING CARD STLYE SHEET for each pilgrim, including a really rough sketch of him or her on the front with his or her name, and the description and analysis of his or her character on the back. Have fun but dig deep and get busy!

One: Knight Squire Summoner

Two: Nun, a Prioress Merchant Pardoner

Four: Friar Franklin Reeve

Three: Monk Miller Host

Five: Doctor Wife of Bath Parson

General Prologue Pronunciation Guide

General Prologue Rap

REVISED Canterbury Tales Reading Schedule

Wednesday (3/28): The General Prologue (19-42) and "The Middle English Period" Handout

Thursday (3/29): The Miller's Tale (102-122)

Friday (3/30): "Life and Times of Chaucer" Handout

Monday (4/2): The Nun's Priest's Tale, including "Words of the Knight and the Host" and "Words of the Host to the Nun's Priest" (231-249) (It's ok if you don't get all of the allusions.)

Tuesday (4/3): The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, including "Words of the Host to the Physician and to the Pardoner" (257-276)

Wednesday (4/4): The Wife of Bath's Prologue, including "Words between the Summoner and the Friar (276-298)

Thursday (4/5): The Wife of Bath's Tale and Remaining Literary Criticism Handouts

Tuesday's Homework

Finish your Beowulf essay.

Google "MLA OWL Purdue" for help with formatting and with citations.

Monday's Homework

Prepare for tomorrow's in-class essay. You may find quotations, prepare an outline, bring notes, and have your text in front of you.

Beowulf In-Class Essay

Topics for In-Class Beowulf Essay

Below, you will find several topics / questions. You have two options:

1. Choose one topic and write a full-on essay (approximately two pages) with a good introduction, body and conclusion.
2. Choose two topics and write two one-page essays, going into some depth on each
question.

You may use your text and your class notes.

Use each essay to explore aspects or the progression of one main idea or thesis.

Create robust paragraphs, whatever your topic choice(s). A good paragraph asserts an
idea, explores the idea through your commentary and examples / quotations from the text,
analyzes the evidence used, and ends with a conclusive statement. Throughout each
paragraph, use strong words; varied sentence structure; articulate, well-crafted sentences;
and correct conventions.

Topics:

1. Examine the role of women in the poem. How do females exert power and authority
in the poem? Do they? If so, how?
2. Examine the nature of religion in the poem—the syncretism of pagan and Christian
elements, creating a certain tension in the poem. The poet conflates (fuses together)
his own Christianity with the pagan beliefs of his forbears—with what results for the
modern reader?
3. Discuss the role of wyrd and doom in the poem. In a much more ancient—2, 000
years old at least!—long narrative poem, Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero is thrown into
an existential tailspin by the death of his best friend, Enkidu. In ways that we can
absolutely relate to now, Gilgamesh agonizes over the meaning or meaningless of
human existence. In contrast, how and why does the much more recent concept of
“wyrd” seem alien to us? Or does it?
4. Look at and compare the three “monsters,” and discuss what they represent to the
characters, the poem, and perhaps even the contemporary reader. Refer to your
questions (handout) for more good ideas on this topic.
5. Explore aspects of the warrior culture, such as comitatus—“the brotherhood of men
who owed allegiance to a chieftain and expected his benevolence in return” (Robert
Hughes)—honor, glory, war, tribal allegiance, revenge, and violence.
6. Explore the idea of the hero, focusing on Beowulf as the heroic ideal: brave,
generous, loyal? Self-aggrandizing, attention-seeking, fool-hardy?
7. Does this poem have a moral? A message? What can modern readers take away from
the poem to ponder?
8. Discuss the imagery and mood of the poem—what impression(s) of the imagined
world of the poem does the poet conjure through sense images and how?
9. Discuss with the poem’s language and poetic features as rendered by Heaney in his
translation.
10. If you have thought of your own topic, just clear it with me first.

Friday's In-Class Work

Hey folks. I’m out today. Please work hard!

No chicken dancing Tess and Eleanor.

No whining John, Jacob, and Ryan.

Go team!

1. Discuss the following in groups of 2-4, and take one set of group notes with all names:

1. Reread from page 119, line 1724 to page 123, line 1784. What do you make of Hrothgar’s lecture to Beowulf? Does this seem in line with the Anglo-Saxon values we’ve so far noticed or does this feel like the Beowulf Poet’s Christian values superimposed on the tale?
2. Our world is practically obsessed with interior selves: from psychoanalysis and talk-therapy to iPods and blogs; from loneliness and “feelings” to guilt complexes and anxieties. Some consider our times as operating under the “cult of the individual.” How does Beowulf conceptualize the individual? Does there even seem to be such a thing as an interior self in the poem? If so, how does it look compared to today’s notion of the self

1. “The Wanderer” and “The Seafarer” are beautiful examples of Anglo-Saxon verse. They were both discovered in a 10th century manuscript called The Exeter Book. Here’s an example of a riddle from The Exeter Book:

• I am a wondrous creature for women in expectation, a service for neighbors. I harm none of the citizens except my slayer alone. My stem is erect, I stand up in bed, hairy somewhere down below. A very comely peasant's daughter, dares sometimes, proud maiden, that she grips at me, attacks me in my redness, plunders my head, confines me in a stronghold, feels my encounter directly, woman with braided hair. Wet be that eye.

• Answer: Onion

Read “The Wanderer” or “The Seafarer” as a group. TAKE THE READING SERIOUSLY! You may annotate as you read if you wish. Respond to the discussion questions in the back on a separate sheet of paper.

Everyone is responsible for completing these! One sheet per student.

Homework: Finish Beowulf and any remaining questions on “The Wanderer” or “The Seafarer”

Beowulf p. 57 - 113

Vocabulary (Beowulf Plus)

Wyrd – fate

Comitatus – the bond existing between a warrior and his lord

Thane – a warrior for the king who has been gifted a piece of land

Wergild – the “man-price”

Kenning – a two-word compound; a metaphorical circumlocution (an ambiguous or round-about way of saying something). [“whale-road,” “word-hoard,” “battle-sweat”]

Epithet – a phrase attached to or replacing a proper noun. Wulfgar says to
Beowulf, “I will take this message, in accordance with your wish, to our
noble king, our dear lord, friend of the Danes, the giver of rings.”

Heroic Elegiac - Tolkien's classification of Beowulf. "Heroic" because it details heroic deeds; "Elegiac" because, like an elegy, it is a mornful tribute to things past.

Pantheism - God is in everything; everything is God.

Anachronistic -- occuring outside of its time (the microwave was anachronistic in the civil war movie.)

Beowulf Initial Questions

Beowulf Initial Questions

1. Who is Shield Sheafson? What about him makes the poet proclaim “Þæt wæs gōd cyning”? Why do you think that the poem begins here, rather than with Hrothgar and Grendel?

2. What do you make of the whole poem beginning with a funeral? What tone is set in the first 50 or so lines?

3. What is Grendel’s lineage? From his perspective, why does he terrorize Heorot?

4. What seems to be significant about Heorot and mead-halls in general?

5. What do you make of Beowulf as a hero at this point?

6. Who is Unferth? Why is he so hostile toward Beowulf?

Beowulf Audio

Shhh....

http://www.mediafire.com/?g000mzb64a7n6

Beowulf Reading Schedule

TUESDAY: 3 - top of 57
WEDNESDAY: 57 - middle of 113
THURSDAY: 113 - top of 163
FRIDAY: 163 - END at 213

As you read, pay attention to kennings, or two noun circumlocutions like "whale-road."

LOOK UP WORDS YOU DON'T KNOW!

Notice the family tree in the back of the book.

Monday's Homework

Read "The Sorrows of Deirdre." Notice things that feel particularly ancient or stangely contemporary.

Hey

Hey folks. I'll do my best to keep this blog updated with nightly homework assignments and links to important sites or files. Nonetheless, this site is not an excuse to avoid contact with me if you are absent or forgot your homework. Email me at levyb@arps.org if you have any questions.

I look forward to the term!