CHAUCER: THE PROLOGUE
This six-week course provides an introduction to the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer by
means of a close study of the “General Prologue” to the Canterbury Tales. The focus will
be on the literary, historical, cultural, and linguistic aspects of the text. Participants will
learn enough Middle English to read Chaucer’s verse with confidence and pleasure and to
prepare them for possible further reading on their own or in possible future seminars.
The course leader will suggest optional supplementary readings to those in the
“Prologue,” but most of the material will be presented in lecture or pursued in discussion.
Although the approach to the materials will be linguistic and thematic rather than linear,
the following syllabus will be a general guide.
FEBRUARY 24: Language (I) Prologue lines 1-42 (Introduction to the Prologue)
MARCH 3: Language (II) Prologue 43-207 (Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk)
MARCH 10: Chaucer and the Literary Tradition/ Prologue 208-387
(Friar, Merchant, Clerk, Franklin, Fraternity Members, Cook)
MARCH 17: Chaucer and his England/ Prologue 388-541 (Shipman, Doctor, Wife
of Bath, Parson, Plowman)
MARCH 24: Medieval Aesthetics and Modern Aesthetics/ Prologue 542-714
(Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner)
MARCH 31: Some Chaucerian Techniques/ Prologue 715-857
Since the class will concentrate on the “Prologue”, any text of Chaucer can be used, so
long as it is in the original Middle English and well glossed. But the course leader
strongly recommends the paperback Norton critical edition by V. A. Kolve and Glending
Olson: The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue (ISBN
9780393952452.) It is manageable in size and weight. A very inexpensive second hand
copy of it can be purchased from Amazon.com or abebooks.com. Although readers may
have to tolerate the underlinings and marginal notes of a previous owner, it will provide a
valuable resource should they want to go further into Chaucer.
Leader: John Fleming is Professor of Literature and Comparative Literature, Emeritus,
at Princeton University.
Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon, 6 weeks beginning February 24.