Office: LL 226B, Tel.: 480-965-8139
E-mail: Richard.Newhauser@asu.edu, Web site: http://www.public.asu.edu/~rnewhaus/
Office Hours: TTh 3:00 -4:30 p.m., and by appointment
Description:
The vast and at times violent transformations underway in England in the late fourteenth century resulted in changes in major institutions of the time: the royal court of Richard II worked itself into an impasse with Parliament, in which the king was outdone; the church hierarchy found itself challenged to respond on an immediate level to the common perception of moral decay, and had to find ways to accommodate the creative energy of reformers; and the social structure of late-medieval England was under immense stress, to the point of breaking (temporarily) in the Peasants Revolt of 1381. This setting of stress was the environment for three remarkable writers, in whose work one can witness attempts at creating order in literary, moral, and social senses. The fruitful ways in which Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, all centered at major points in their careers in London, focus their attention on order and decay in the England of their day will be the subject of this course.
Reading List:
Works on Reserve:
Aers, David. Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination.
London, etc.: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Beidler, Peter G. "Transformations in Gower's Tale of Florent
and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale." In Chaucer and Gower:
Difference, Mutuality, Exchange. Ed. R. F. Yeager, 100-14.
Victoria, BC, Canada: English Literary Studies, Univ. of Victoria,
1991.
Bowers, John M. Chaucer and Langland. The Antagonistic Tradition.
Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
Cooper, Helen. The Canterbury Tales. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1996.
Keiser, George R. "The Spiritual Heroism of Chaucer's Custance."
In Chaucer's Religious Tales. Ed. C. David Benson and Elizabeth
Robertson, 121-36. Cambridge, Engl.; Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer,
1990.
Mann, Jill. Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire. The Literature
of Social Classes and the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973. (on reserve for
English 415)
Minnis, Alastair. "Chaucer's Pardoner and the Office of Preacher."
In Intellectuals and Writers in Fourteenth-century Europe:
The J. A. W. Bennett Memorial Lectures, Perugia, 1984. Ed.
Piero Boitani and Anna Torti, 88-119. Tübingen: G. Narr,
Cambridge, Engl.: D. S. Brewer, 1986.
Mitchell, A. G. Lady Meed and the Art of Piers Plowman.
London: H. K. Lewis and Co., 1956. Reprint in Style and Symbolism
in Piers Plowman: A Modern Critical Anthology. Ed. Robert
J. Blanch, 174-93. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, [1969].
Mitchell, J. Allen. Ethics and Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer
and Gower. Cambridge, Engl.: D. S. Brewer, 2004.
Patterson, Lee. " 'Experience woot well it is noght so':
Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Wife of Bath's Prologue
and Tale." In The Wife of Bath. Geoffrey Chaucer.
Ed. Peter G. Beidler, 133-54. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's
Press, 1996.
Pearsall, Derek. The Canterbury Tales. London, Boston:
G. Allen & Unwin, 1985; reprint London, New York: Routledge,
1993.
Peck, Russell A. Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio
Amantis. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ.
Press, 1978.
--. "The Politics and Psychology of Governance in Gower:
Ideas of Kingship and Real Kings." In A Companion to Gower.
Ed. Siân Echard, 215-38. Cambridge, Engl: Brewer, 2004.
Watt, Diane. Amoral Gower. Language, Sex, and Politics.
Minneapolis, London: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Requirements:
An oral report on the topic you have chosen to work on in consultation with me and a final paper. You must meet with me during my office hours (or make an appointment) to discuss your topic.
1. T 1/15: Introduction
2. Th 1/17: Middle English 1; Ideas of Order 1: John Gower, Confessio
Amantis, prologue; Peck, "The Politics and Psychology
of Governance in Gower" (reserve)
3. T 1/22: Middle English 2; Ideas of Order 1: John Gower,
Confessio Amantis, prologue; Watt, Amoral
Gower, 107-26 (reserve)
4. Th 1/24: Middle English 3; Ideas of Order 1: John Gower, Confessio
Amantis, prologue
5. T 1/29: Middle English 4; Ideas of Order 2: Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue; Cooper,
The Canterbury Tales, 27-61 (reserve); report: _____________
6. Th 1/31: Middle English 5; Ideas of Order 2: Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue; report:
_____________
7. T 2/5: Middle English 6; Ideas of Order 2: Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales, The General Prologue; Mann,
Chaucer and Medieval Estates Satire, 1-16 (reserve);
report: _____________
8. Th 2/7: No Class
9. T 2/12: Ideas of Order 3: William Langland, Piers
Plowman, B.prologue, passus I; Bowers, Chaucer and
Langland, 103-56 (reserve); report: _____________
10. Th 2/14: Ideas of Order 3: William Langland, Piers Plowman,
B.prologue, passus I; report: _____________
11. T 2/19: The State: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Knight's Tale; Pearsall, The Canterbury
Tales, 114-38 (reserve); report: _____________
12. Th 2/21: The State: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Knight's Tale; report: _____________
13. T 2/26: The State: William Langland, Piers Plowman, B.passus
VI; Aers, Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination,
1-37 (reserve); report: _____________
14. Th 2/28: The State: William Langland, Piers Plowman,
B.passus VI; report: _____________
15. T 3/4: Moral Order: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Man of Law's Tale; Keiser, "The Spiritual
Heroism of Chaucer's Custance," 121-36 (reserve); report:
_____________
16. Th 3/6: Moral Order: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Man of Law's Tale; report: _____________
3/9-16: No class: Spring Break
17. T 3/18: Moral Order: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Constance; Mitchell, Ethics and Exemplary Narrative,
61-78 (reserve); report: _____________
18. Th 3/20: Moral Order: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Constance; report: _____________
19. T 3/25: Transformations: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Wife of Bath's Tale; Patterson, " 'Experience
woot well it is noght so,' " 133-54 (reserve); report: _____________
20. Th 3/27: Transformations: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Wife of Bath's Tale; report: _____________
21. T 4/1: Transformations: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Florent; Beidler, "Transformations in Gower's
Tale of Florent and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale,"
100-14. (reserve); report: _____________
22. Th 4/3: Transformations: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Florent; report: _____________
23. T 4/8: Moral Economy: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Jason and Medea; Peck, Kingship and Common Profit
in Gower's Confessio Amantis, 99-123; report: _____________
24. Th 4/10: Moral Economy: John Gower, Confessio Amantis,
The Tale of Jason and Medea; report: _____________
25. T 4/15: Moral Economy: William Langland, Piers Plowman,
B.passus II-IV; Mitchell, "Lady Meed and the Art of Piers
Plowman," 174-93; report: _____________
26. Th 4/17: Moral Economy: William Langland, Piers Plowman,
B.passus II-IV; report: _____________
27. T 4/22: Moral Economy: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Pardoner's Tale; Minnis, "Chaucer's Pardoner
and the Office of Preacher," 88-119; report: _____________
28. Th 4/24: Moral Economy: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Pardoner's Tale; report: _____________
29. T 4/29: Papers due today