ENGL 411

Fall 2020 All Classes

All Classes

Chaucer

SHOW FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

Credit: 3 OR 4 hours.

A selection of Chaucer's major works read in Middle English. Instructors will usually emphasize either the Canterbury Tales or Troilus and Criseyde and the dream visions, but alternate combinations of texts are possible. Students will also be introduced to Chaucer's fourteenth-century context.

Same as MDVL 411. 3 undergraduate hours. 4 graduate hours. Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.

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ENGL 411 class schedule data for fall 2020
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	46731	Online	1G	12:00PM -12:50PM	MWF	n.a.	Barrett, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/24/20-12/09/20 Credit: 4 hours Section Info: Canterbury Critters: The More-Than-Human World of Geoffrey Chaucer - Geoffrey Chaucer’s poems entangle themselves in the more-than-human world: the narrators of Chaucer’s dream visions encounter pedantic eagles and sexy daisies, while the pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales tell stories about vainglorious roosters and killer rocks. Indeed, in Chaucer’s worldview, humans are themselves not entirely human, trapped as they are between heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, reason and instinct, nature and culture. They are simultaneously “creatures” (God’s handiwork) and “critters” (material beings caught up in the lifeweb). We’ll use these ecologically-inflected insights as points of entry into Chaucer’s poetry, working our way over the course of the semester through the dream visions (Book of the Duchess, Parliament of Fowls, House of Fame, and Legend of Good Women) and a sizable selection of Canterbury Tales. A note about language: we will be reading Chaucer’s poems in their original Middle English (and I’ll be testing you on your facility with that earlier form of the English language). But you will have lots of opportunities to practice and develop your Middle English skills before any sort of evaluation takes place. (I’m thinking the midterm exam is the logical place to test Middle English comprehension, leaving the final exam to concentrate on the interpretative side of things.) Written work will include a few short methods-based papers, but the primary research focus of the course will be the Critter Dossier, an assignment asking you to become in-class experts on a variety of Chaucerian critters. Restriction(s): Restricted to Graduate - Urbana-Champaign.
	46730	Online	1U	12:00PM -12:50PM	MWF	n.a.	Barrett, R	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 08/24/20-12/09/20 Credit: 3 hours Section Info: Canterbury Critters: The More-Than-Human World of Geoffrey Chaucer - Geoffrey Chaucer’s poems entangle themselves in the more-than-human world: the narrators of Chaucer’s dream visions encounter pedantic eagles and sexy daisies, while the pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales tell stories about vainglorious roosters and killer rocks. Indeed, in Chaucer’s worldview, humans are themselves not entirely human, trapped as they are between heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, reason and instinct, nature and culture. They are simultaneously “creatures” (God’s handiwork) and “critters” (material beings caught up in the lifeweb). We’ll use these ecologically-inflected insights as points of entry into Chaucer’s poetry, working our way over the course of the semester through the dream visions (Book of the Duchess, Parliament of Fowls, House of Fame, and Legend of Good Women) and a sizable selection of Canterbury Tales. A note about language: we will be reading Chaucer’s poems in their original Middle English (and I’ll be testing you on your facility with that earlier form of the English language). But you will have lots of opportunities to practice and develop your Middle English skills before any sort of evaluation takes place. (I’m thinking the midterm exam is the logical place to test Middle English comprehension, leaving the final exam to concentrate on the interpretative side of things.) Written work will include a few short methods-based papers, but the primary research focus of the course will be the Critter Dossier, an assignment asking you to become in-class experts on a variety of Chaucerian critters. Restriction(s): Restricted to Undergrad - Urbana-Champaign.