32252 Final Paper
Due date for the 1st draft: Tuesday, April 30th
Do not decide to skip reading the following instructions because “it looks too long.” Believe me, you
will save time in the long run by reading the instructions carefully. Every semester I have someone
have to redo the entire assignment because he or she ignored the instructions. Don’t let this happen to
you.
Your final paper will be five to six pages long. You will need one primary source and at least three
secondary sources which must date from no earlier than 1980, in addition to your primary text. You will
need a Works Cited page properly formatted in accord with MLA guidelines. Failure to include a Works
Cited page correctly formatted will result in the loss of 10 points from your grade. Any material you
include from your texts in the body of your paper must also be formatted in accord with the MLA
guidelines. If you don’t know about MLA, and I don’t know how you made it to a 300 level class without
knowing about it, go to the OWL Purdue site and use that as a reference.
Please check my post on Formal Academic writing under Course Information on Bb for matters of style
and mechanics. I do take off points for incorrect use of quotations, incorrectly formatted titles, etc.
Double-spaced, normal margins and fonts, please. (No , an elaborate double-spaced heading which
takes up half a page with your name, my name, class, date, and what you ate for breakfast that morning
does not count toward length. Your name, and class are sufficient. I know who I am and I know what
day it is.) I want a hard copy. Please don’t ignore the deadline and then decide to send your paper to
me as an attachment to an email.
Remember plagiarism is not simply copying another’s words verbatim. Re-read my post on Bb under
Course Information on plagiarism if you are not sure.
You will write a first draft, not a rough draft, which you will submit, and which I will read and correct.
I want you to turn in a first draft which is as finished in quality as you can make it. Students
occasionally have turned in a “rough draft” as their first draft– that is NOT what I’m looking for.
You will then revise and submit a second draft incorporating whatever changes are necessary. PLEASE
NOTE: I WILL NOT ACCEPT A SECOND DRAFT WITHOUT HAVING SEEN A FIRST DRAFT. I have had
students who decide to blow off the first draft, come along and try to hand in their final paper at the
end. In those cases, I decline to accept and there is a loss of 20% from your final grade.
PLEASE ALSO NOTE: If you turn in an A paper, I will not make you revise. Why would I? If it’s an A, it’s an
A. SO IT IS IN YOUR OWN INTERESTS TO SUBMIT AS POLISHED A FIRST DRAFT AS YOU CAN.
Secondary Sources
Your secondary sources must be either books of a scholarly nature, or articles from peer-reviewed,
scholarly journals of the type which can be found in the databases on the Hunter library site. Please
avoid those articles which, although written in English, come from universities overseas where English
is not the primary language; they are usually fairly simplistic in their interpretations and riddled with
syntactical errors. No random internet articles, please. Journals such as The Chaucer Review, and
Speculum are the gold standard in medieval studies. Here is a site which may be helpful in finding
sources: http://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/jgellri/sample-page/periodical-publications-journals-inmedieval-studies/
The articles and books you choose must be written AFTER 1980. Scholarship has changed so
drastically in recent decades, that while older articles and books may have historical interest, they will
not reflect current trends, particularly in the area of gender theory. I check this immediately and if you
have not worked with recent scholarship, I will return your paper to you and you will have to find new
sources.
Readings in Gender Theory
In order to write this paper, you will need some basic understanding of gender theory. If you feel you
need additional background, the big names to look at would be : Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,
Jacques Lacan, the inescapable Michel Foucault, and perhaps Freud as the antecedent for many of
thinkers above. You might also look at Julia Kristeva, and Kaja Silverman.
For specifically medieval gender theory which you will most definitely need to include, there is a host of
names which would include such people as Carolyn Dinshaw, Glenn Burger, Tison Pugh, Mark Miller,
Isabel Davis, and Alan Frantzen. For a slightly older, somewhat dated feminist take, there is Elaine Tuttle
Hansen. Richard Zeikowitz has written on knighthood, chivalry and courtly love from the angle of
homoeroticism. And Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, in addition to his own work, has edited a collection of essays
under the title of Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, one of which called, “Wolfman,” might be useful if
you are writing about Marie de France’s werewolf.
He’s not a gender theorist (in fact , he would faint at the thought!), but you might be interested in
CUNY’s very own and much beloved E. Gordon Whatley’s “Hagiography and Violence: Military Men in
Aelfric’s Lives of Saints” if you are writing about one of the male saints.
The medieval historian Ruth Mazo Karras writes in a clear, accessible style (gasp!) and her research is
impeccable. Two of her titles of interest here would be From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in
Late Medieval Europe, and Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others. She also has an article
about the harlot saints (“Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend,” available on JStor) which
you may wish to look at in its entirety if you are writing about female saints.
There are many other possibilities of course, and I will be happy to suggest what I can if you ask for help.
But don’t wait until the last minute, please. Do not, however, ask me to lead you by the hand and find
the journals, articles, or books I mention above for you. Part of the work of writing the paper is playing
detective and finding your sources. I cannot help twenty people track down each individual source.
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If you have been in my 252 class, you may not write about Chaucer’s Pardoner. If you were in my
Chaucer class, you may not choose the same topic you wrote about for that class. Otherwise,
everything we’ve read is fair game.
You must choose something we read or will read this semester.
After each topic listed below, I offer some suggestions about how to approach that topic. Remember:
this is NOT just about your reading of the text you choose; it is a RESEARCH paper and you must
interweave your secondary sources with your own views. Pick one of the texts we have read this
semester- any text but only one of them! - and construct a thesis in light of one of the following topics:
The Warrior Culture - This immediately suggests the Anglo-Saxons but it might also work with one of
the knights of Chaucer, or Marie de France, or even Chretien. (Remember that in the later medieval NOT Anglo-Saxon -description of the three estates ( the aristocracy, the clergy and the peasantry), the
knightly class is described as “those who fight.”)
So the question is: How does a culture of combat shape definitions of gender? Are women doomed to
second class status in a warrior society? What is expected of men in this culture?
Christian Masculinity - How does it differ from other models of masculinity? Are there possible
accommodations made to secular models? Where do we see such accommodations? Is there a marked
conflict in some cases? St. Edmund or St. Martin are naturals for this one but it would also work well
with Abel from The Killing of Abel, or even Chretien’s Erec.
Marriage – How is power within marriage addressed? Do we see it shared ? If so, is this an occasional
state or can it be a permanent feature of the marriage you are examining? Does class enter into this
discussion? If so, how? This list is long for this one: The Miller’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The
Franklin’s Tale, “The Wife’s Lament”,” Lanval”, “The Lai of the Werewolf”, Erec and Enide, or Noah.
Courtly love- How does the process of courtship in the courtly love paradigm affect the depiction of
women? Can a woman in a narrative shaped by the conventions of courtly love resist definition by a
man and assert her own agency? Does social class color women’s roles in courtly love ? Obviously, this
would include Chretien de Troyes, as well as the Marie de France tales. But it could also include The
Franklin’s Tale, or The Wife of Bath’s Tale (the tale , not the Prologue).
Sainthood – Is sainthood an “ equal opportunity” calling? Is a female saint troubling to male definitions
of sanctity and spiritual superiority? If so, how do we see this manifested? St. Mary of Egypt is the clear
choice here but you might also want to look at the vitae (they’re short) of some other female saints as
part of your background reading. There are some female transvestite saints who are pretty interesting.
You can browse through the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine for this which has very short,
condensed vitae and from which we have already read a selection.
Gender and the Otherworldly – How do we see supernatural elements inflect gender presentation? Are
those identified as outside the realm of ordinary mortals allowed to be different in their performance of
gender? If so, how does this present itself? This one immediately suggests “The Lai of the Werewolf”
and “Lanval’, but it could also apply to certain aspects of the saints’ vitae, and the Loathly Lady/Faerie
from The Wife of Bath’s Tale.
Gender and the Working Class – How do working class people view the performance of gender? Are
their concerns particular to their own class? Do their economic needs preclude certain types of
performance and encourage others? Again, The Miller’s Tale, but also Noah, and The Killing of Abel. The
Wife of Bath is also a “working girl,” and you might even make this work for “The Wanderer” who must
earn his keep as a member of a war band and whose identity is called into question when he “loses his
job.” If you are discussing men here, Ruth Mazo Karras would be useful.