Myth and Science in the Canterbury Tales
Dr. Brendan O’Connell (oconneb2@tcd.ie)
This year-long module explores the dynamic relationship between myth and science in
Chaucer’s unfinished masterpiece. As a writer fascinated by what it means to be human,
Chaucer explores a variety of beliefs about our nature and origin, and our relationship to the
universe around us. His works teem with references to pagan gods, classical myths and ancient
folklore, not to mention biblical traditions and stories. He maintains a strong interest in science,
and his works draw extensively on astronomy, medicine, physiognomy and alchemy. The
protean relationship between myth and science provides a crucial framework for The
Canterbury Tales, in which the contrary perspectives of its many narrators clash against each
other to produce a work of unmatched variety and complexity.
Chaucer’s re-imagining of myth emerged as the literary dominance of classical ‘auctores’, such
as Virgil and Ovid, was being challenged by vernacular authors like Dante, Petrarch and
Boccaccio. Likewise, while this was an age in which religion held a firm grip over intellectual
inquiry, Church authority was increasingly called into question, and scientific knowledge became
more widely dispersed (Chaucer, indeed, was not only the ‘father of English poetry’, but the
author of the first scientific manual in English). This fertile climate produces a number of
startling juxtapositions in the Canterbury Tales, as the pagan mythology and philosophy of the
Knight’s Tale gives way to riotous biblical parody in the Miller’s, and the spiritual
transformations of the Second Nun’s Tale merge into the grubby alchemy of the Canon’s
Yeoman’s. Elsewhere in the text, medical understanding of the four humours is combined with
astrological lore about the influence of the stars on character, and physiognomic speculation
about the significance, for example, of the wart on one pilgrim’s nose and the gap in another’s
teeth. The tales constantly leap over the boundaries between myth, folklore and science: in one,
the gods of the Underworld are re-imagined as meddlesome fairies; in another the Mongol
emperor, Genghis Khan, is given a flying mechanical horse and a magic mirror, gifts which
resonate not only with ancient legend, but with contemporary speculation about the limits of
human science, art and technology. As well as the Tales, we will consider a range of other works
that help us understand the extraordinary synthesis of myth and science in this masterpiece of
English literature.
Text
Ideally, all students should own a copy of The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd
edn (Oxford, 1988) as we will refer occasionally to texts outside of the Canterbury Tales.
However, a complete edition of the The Canterbury Tales, such as the Penguin edition by Jill
Mann (2005) will also be acceptable.
Class Schedule
[The following schedule is provisional: during the year, if you feel you would like to spend more time
on a particular text, or look at things not included here, feel free to let me know]
Michaelmas Term
Week 1:
Introduction
Week 2:
The Complaint of Mars
Week 3:
‘The General Prologue’ to The Canterbury Tales
Week 4:
‘The Knight’s Tale’
Week 5:
‘The Knight’s Tale’
Week 6:
‘The Miller’s Tale’
Week 7:
Study Week
Week 8:
‘The Man of Law’s Tale’
Week 9:
‘The Wife of Bath’s Prologue’
Week 10:
‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’
Week 11:
‘The Friar’s Tale’ and ‘The Summoner’s Tale’
Week 12:
‘The Clerk’s Tale’
Hilary Term
Week 1:
Week 2:
Week 3:
Week 4:
Week 5:
Week 6:
Week 7:
Week 8:
Week 9:
Week 10:
Week 11:
Week 12:
‘The Merchant’s Tale’
‘The Squire’s Tale’
‘The Franklin’s Tale’
‘The Prioress’s Tale’ and ‘The Physician’s Tale’
‘The Pardoner’s Tale’
Chaucer’s tales (‘Thopas’ and ‘Melibee’)
Study Week
‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’
‘The Second Nun’s Tale’
‘The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale’
‘The Manciple’s Tale’
Conclusions
Introductory Reading List (a full list will be provided at the start of the year):
(Note: it may be useful to purchase either Cooper or Phillips as a guide to the Tales)
There is a useful introduction to Chaucer’s language in the Riverside, but a full and accessible
account is offered in Simon Horobin’s Chaucer’s Language (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007). There is
also a superb website called METRO (Middle English Teaching Resources Online).
Boitani, Piero and Jill Mann, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, 2nd edn (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2003 [1986]).
Brown, Peter, Geoffrey Chaucer, Authors in Context series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). A
nice, readable introduction to key issues and contexts.
Cooper, Helen, Oxford Guide to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales (Oxford, 1996).
Ellis, Steve, ed., Chaucer: An Oxford Guide, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Helen Phillips, An Introduction to the ‘Canterbury Tales’: Reading, Fiction, Context (Palgrave, 2005).
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:
1. Identify and describe the chief genres employed by Chaucer, including dream vision,
romance, fabliau and exemplum.
2. Read Chaucer’s Middle English with competence and fluency.
3. Closely analyse a given passage of Chaucer’s work with reference to appropriate resources
such as the Middle English Dictionary.
4. Employ a range of interpretive strategies using critical vocabulary appropriate to the study
of medieval literature.
5. Analyse the impact of key historical events and movements on Chaucer’s literary output.
6. Describe the influence of key intellectual and cultural trends on the literature of Chaucer