For Wednesday: Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Act III

Remember to read Act III of The School for Scandal (the last play in the book, if you have the Penguin Classics edition) for Wednesday's class. There are NO QUESTIONS for Wednesday, since we'll have an in-class response instead. Here are some ideas to consider as you read:

* Look at the argument Sir Peter and Lady Teazle get into in Act III, Scene i, which ends up in both of them threatening divorce. What sets them off? Why does he keep 'acting' like her enemy when he's clearly in love with her?

* Why does Sir Oliver get in on the act and play the role of Mr. Premium? Why does he simply confront Charles without the mask? 

* How does Act III also reveal the casual racism of the era, which forced people outside the norm of English life into stereotypical roles? Do you think Sheridan is trying to expose these stereotypes or taking them at face value? 

* What does Charles do that deeply offends Sir Oliver (disguised as Mr. Premium)? Why is this shocking to him, and probably to an eighteenth-century audience? 

* Is Charles a sympathetic character; are we rooting for him at this point in the play? If so, what makes him a more likable character than, say, his brother Joseph? Has Charles earned his bad reputation, or is it all slander from the 'school for scandal'? 

For Monday: Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Acts 1-2

 

Answer TWO of the following for Monday’s class:

Q1: Which characters or lines in the play reminded you the most of Dangerous Liasons? Why is this? What makes you know that both works are from the same general world, even if one takes place in France and the other in England?

Q2: In Act 2, Mrs. Candour defends her delight in gossiping by saying, “surely you would not be quite so severe on those who only report what they hear?” (214). Do you think there’s any merit to this defense? If they’re not actively causing harm to other people, but just repeating what others have already said—whether true or false—are they really to blame? Or are they equally guilty?

Q3: We meet Sir Peter and Lady Teazle in this play, which is a new take on the age-old joke of old men marrying young wives (which we also encountered in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue). What does Sheridan seem to be poking fun at in this relationship: just his age? Or some factor of marriage between unequal partners? (hint: Jane Austen will pick up on this theme herself)

Q4:  Dangerous Liasons was a more serious work of satire, while The School for Scandal is more humorous and light-hearted. But where might the joke be less ‘funny’ in this play? In other words, why might Sheridan have the same intentions for the play as the film? Where is the comedy not really a comedy?

After Spring Break: The Midterm Paper (new DUE DATE) and other info

I've made a few tweaks to the schedule after Spring Break, which are pasted below. The biggest thing is that your Mid-Term Paper is due ANY TIME the week we return, but NO LATER than Friday by around 5pm. That should give you some extra time to work on it and iron out the connections between Sonnets. The Mid-Term assignment sheet is posted about four posts down (scroll down to find it).  

Be sure that you have a copy of Sheridan's The School for Scandal, which is a play we'll start reading the week after we return from class. We'll watch a film that introduces the world and the context of the play called Dangerous Liasons, which is an adaptation of an 18th century French novel that was all the rage in Austen's day, and of which she was a big fan. 

Here's the revised schedule for the rest of the semester, which we should pretty much stick to:

M 17                SPRING BREAK

 

M 24               Film: Dangerous Liasons

W 26               Film: Dangerous Liasons

F 28                Film Discussion/ Mid-Term Paper due

 

M 31               Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Acts 1-2

 

APRIL

W 2                Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Act 3

R 3                 [Scissortail Creative Writing Festival begins]

F 4                 Scissortail Creative Writing Festival [no class]

 

M 7                 Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Acts 4-5

W 9                 Context: The Age of the Novel

F 11                Austen, from "Love and Friendship" [handout]

 

M 14                Austen, Emma TBA

W 16               Austen, Emma, TBA

F 18                Austen, Emma, TBA

 

M 21               Austen, Emma TBA  

W 23               Austen, Emma, TBA

F 25                Short Paper #3 due in class  

 

M 28                Austen, Emma, TBA

W 30               Austen, Emma, TBA  

 

MAY

F 2                   Austen, Emma, TBA  

 

M 5                  Austen, Emma, TBA

W 7                 Wrap-Up/Discuss Final Paper

F 9                  [Extra class if needed]

 

Final Paper due TBA

 

 

For Wednesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 5

Read the following Sonnets for our last (sigh) official class on The Sonnets, even though we'll be discussing your Paper #2 assignment on Friday (so I guess that still counts). However, I tried to summarize the rest of the 'story' of the Sonnets up with the following Sonnets, though feel free to read more around them--I still left out some great ones! 

Read the following for Wednesday's class: 116, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 134, 135, 138, 144.

We'll do an in-class writing response when you come to class on Wednesday, but consider some of the following ideas:

* What makes Sonnet 126 different from all the rest? Look less at what the sonnet is saying than how it is written...compare how it looks on the page to other sonnets (hint, hint).

* Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous sonnets in the entire sequence, almost as much as Sonnet 18, and is often read at weddings. What makes this sonnet so traditionally romantic, and why is it coming so late in the sequence (especially since he ends things with the young man in Sonnet 126)? Is it out of place?

* How does Sonnet 121 seemt to negate Sonnet 116, and why do they come so close together in the sequence?

* Sonnet 127 is the first one featuring the "Dark Mistress," as most scholars call her. How is his relationship markedly different with her than the Young Man?

* Sonnet 130 is another super famous one, and is often contrasted with Sonnet 18. Is this also a romantic sonnet? How is his love and appreciation different for the woman than the man?

* Look at all the possible meanings of "will" in Sonnet 135, one of which is the poet's own name, Will. Read the longer note on page 339 if you really want to open your eyes to all the possibilities! 

* What kind of relationship does the poet have with the mistress by Sonnet 138? Is this deep love and affection? Deep distrust and paranoia? Or a reluctant truce?

Class Updates!

 I sent everyone an e-mail about this, but I wanted to post it here as well just in case. Here's what to expect for the rest of this week and next week:

* I sent everyone the In-Class Writing Response to the Sonnets we planned to do today in class. You can bring that to class on Monday OR e-mail it to me between now and then. 

* The new questions for Monday are in the post BELOW this one. You can also find the Short Paper #2 assignment and the Mid-Term Assignment in the post below that one (though I handed them both out on Monday).

* The Short Paper #2 will NOT be due on Monday anymore. We'll move it two days back to Friday (next Friday, the 14th). The Mid-Term will have the same due date after Spring Break.

Let me know if you have any other questions! Hope to see you on Monday! 

For Monday (!): Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 4

NOTE: Since we're losing two days of class, I want to keep up with The Sonnets so we can roughly finish them before Spring Break. So read the following for Monday's class, and you can turn these in anytime this week.

Read the following Sonnets: 73, 78, 80, 82, 86, 87, 91, 94, 96, 110

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In these later Sonnets, a fourth character seems to enter the scene, someone else to complicate the initial love triangle. Where do we see a fourth person (and a second rival for the young man's love)? Why might this rival be even more threatening than the Mistress?

Q2: As a playwright, Shakespeare not only draws from a stock of theatrical metaphors, but also adopts dramatic poses and rhetoric. Where might we see the poet adopting a theatrical 'mode' for greater effect? In other words, why might the poet be adopting a role or simply "acting out" to elicit a specific emotion from the young man? How do we know this poem might be a little out of place because of this attitude?  

Q3: Is the poet trying to end the relationship himself in these Sonnets, or do you feel he’s merely trying to deal with the fact that it’s been over for some time? Who broke up with whom? How do you read a Sonnet like 71, for example, by way of answering this question?

Q4: Do we get any more sense of who the Lover is based on these later Sonnets? Their class, rank, wealth, profession, etc.? Is Shakespeare this person’s inferior? Is he truly a younger man? What clues emerge as their relationship comes to its fatal conclusion? Is Shakespeare (or the poet) more forthcoming with information he might have previously withheld?

For Wednesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 3

For Wednesday's class, read the following range of 10 Sonnets (though feel free to read others within this range as well):

Nos. 46, 53, 55, 57, 58, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71

We'll have an in-class writing response when you come to class. However, here are some ideas to consider as you read:

* Look for repetitions in Shakespeare--words that he repeats often in one poem, or a word that he plays on with several different meanings in one Sonnet. But whenever he repeats something, it's for a reason, to call attention to the idea behind the word.

* Does he continue to make excuses for the beloved's behavior, or is he more in 'attack' mode at this point? Who is winning the "civil war between  love and hate"? 

* Note when he switches back into "you" from "thou" in the poems, and try to figure out why he does this. What is the effect of using "you" in a poem, such as No.55, or 57? 

* Have the poems become more sophisticated as they go along? More complex? Darker? Stranger? What quality has changed over the course of 70 sonnets?

* How 'healthy' do you think the poet's love is for the beloved? Are there signs that this is pathological behavior? Could he be arrested for this behavior today? Are we supposed to condone the poet's sentiments? Or be afraid of them? (Remember, Shakespeare writes many plays about lovers who kill their beloved for questionable reasons, such as Othello).

Paper #2 and the Mid-Term Paper Assignments

Short Paper #2: Call and Response

INTRO: This short paper is designed to get you ‘into’ the Mid-Term paper by focusing on a brief close-reading exercise with The Sonnets. It’s very simple but will require you to really pay attention to the language so that you ANALYZE instead of just SUMMARIZE. This is the most important thing you can do when writing a literature paper.

THE PROMPT: Pick TWO Sonnets (no more) from anywhere in the sequence that you feel respond to one another almost literally. By this I mean that one Sonnet says something, and the other one responds to it, as if they are written by two different people. What makes you hear this ‘call and response’ in the poems? Who might be speaking in each one (it doesn’t just have to be Shakespeare and the Lover)? What ideas do they both share, and how does each one examine them? Does one question how the initial theme is presented? Is one more defensive and one more accusatory? Does the second one come to some sort of resolution or explanation about the first? Or does it end in an even greater mystery?

REQUIREMENTS: Try to CLOSE READ both poems, either by looking first at one and then the other, or by examining them together, examining shared themes or ideas. But don’t just say “this poem seems to say this, or makes me feel this” without showing us where and how. Remember how subjective literature is: what you see isn’t necessary what I see, or what someone else sees. So you have to show us where you see it and why you think it reads that way. Examine individual words, too, since words can be twisted and pulled in many directions. Don’t be afraid to use the word glossary on the left side of the Folder edition, too, to help you.

DUE: In-Class on Friday. the 14th (revised date). Obviously we haven’t read all The Sonnets yet, so just do what you can with the ones we’ve read by then. I want to discuss the connections you found in class since this could help everyone work on their Mid-Term papers. If you miss class, the paper is still due by class time.

 

Mid-Term Paper: He Said/He Said

For your more creative Mid-Term Paper, I want you to create a mini drama of connected poems for TWO ACTORS, each actor speaking FOUR Sonnets. The catch is that each Sonnet (except the very first) is a response to the one before it, as if they’re having an actual poetic conversation. So even though The Sonnets as we have them feature a single person speaking, imagine that these poems are actually a dialogue between two people, with one Sonnet by the Poet, and another Sonnet by the Lover, in response. You should decide WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE (they don’t have to be Shakespeare and the Lover, for example; they can be contemporary people, or characters in a movie or sitcom, and you can even swap their gender, age, etc.) and A STORY/BACKDROP for the Sonnets (such as—they work in an office together, or they’re a divorced couple, are two aging-movie stars, etc).

Your Paper should open with a Cast of Characters (explain who each character is) and a list of Four Acts, concluding with a One Sonnet Epilogue. Each Act Should have a general Title/Theme and should indicate which two Sonnets make up that Act. For example:

Actor 1: Jim from The Office

Actor 2: Pam from The Office

Act 1: The First Meeting: Sonnets 14 and 29

Act 2: Working Late at Night: Sonnets 53 and 74

Act 3: The Fatal First Kiss: Sonnets 28 and 92

Act 4: Going Our Separate Ways: Sonnets 124 and 134

Epilogue: Sonnet 145

 

The ‘writing’ part of your paper should briefly explain the conversation you see in each Act, and why you chose these Sonnets. Use a little close reading here to read AT LEAST ONE of the Sonnets to bring out the conversation between the two characters. Do this for all Four Acts and the Epilogue, explaining how this ‘winds up’ the entire drama. This doesn’t have to be too long or exhaustive, but I should get a sense that you didn’t just choose poems at random. I want to see the logic and the connection between the two sonnets that make them a dialogue. Feel free to use entire parts of your Short Paper #2 for this as well.

HAVE FUN with this, and try to imagine the Sonnets as a conversation (which in many ways they are) which goes back and forth, up and down, and sideways. Does anyone ‘win’ in this struggle, or do they both declare defeat? What do you want us to see about the characters through the Sonnets? Who is the betrayed and who the betrayer?

DUE MONDAY, MARCH 24^th BY 5pm (we do have class that day, but will be watching a film)

For Monday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 2

 

For Monday, please read the following Sonnets:

·      23-25

·      29-31

·      33-35

·      40-42

Answer two of the following:

Q1: In many of the Sonnets, Shakespeare seems to elaborate on the same idea in pairs or throughout several Sonnets. Discuss how one of the groups above seems to do this? What does he most develop: the situation? The metaphor? the approach? the tone/attitude? Be specific so we can see how they're related, and if possible, what one of them develops (is the second harsher than the first, or vice versa?)

Q2: Many of the early sonnets seem to express a philia, or sincere     friendship between the poet and the young man (as in Sonnet 1). Do you detect a change in the Sonnets as they hit the 20's? What specifically seems to change, and where might we sense an element of eros (romantic love)? Do you think the poet was addressing them to a different audience? Clues?

Q3: Reading between the lines of these poems, how does the poet reveal something about his personal life or class/station? What is his relationship to the young man (or whomever he's writing to)? Are they of the same age? Class? Profession? How can we tell?

Q4: Many of these poems are defined by their complaints: the poet seems to have a lot of grievances against the young man, and has trouble hiding his feelings. Reading between the lines, what does the young man seem to have done to the poet, or what 'crimes' has he committed? Do these threaten the relationship they have together, or is it more born out of jealousy or paranoia? 

 

For Friday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 1 & the Handout from Wednesday's class

 

For Friday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets, Part 1

Read Sonnets 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20: you can read all 20 if you want, but we’ll only have time to discuss a few, so I want to whittle it down to 6 basic poems. However, Shakespeare often writes the same idea two or three different ways in poems adjacent to each other, as you’ll see in 17 and 18, so it might be useful to read the poems just before or just after the ones listed here.

ALSO: the handout I gave in class about the Sonnets is just below the questions in case you missed class on Wednesday. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Discuss where you see a distinct shift in the relationship between the poet and the ‘young man’ he’s writing to. It could be big or small, or just a slight change in language. What do you think prompted this change? Is the poet just taking a risk, or do you think something outside the poem prompted it? Any clues?

Q2: Discuss a unique metaphor that one of the Sonnets uses that you’ve never read or thought about before. How is it comparing one thing to something else, and why is it so effective? Do you think it would be as effective with the poem’s intended audience?

Q3:  Discuss a line or passage in ONE of the poems that has very unusual syntax (sentence/grammatical structure). What do you think it literally means, and why do you think he writes it this way? Could he have been trying to make it difficult to read or understand?

Q4: Which poem feels or sounds the most like a ‘love poem’ to you? Why is this? What makes the poem unusually intimate or revealing? Also, what makes it so different than the other poems around it?

Q5: How do two of the poems seem to ‘copy’ each other? Or, why might one poem actually be the revision (or the first draft) of another one? Where do we see ideas, words, or metaphors repeated, even if with slight variation? Discuss TWO poems that do this.

READING THE SONNETS: SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER

Iambic Pentameter: an “iamb” is a pair of syllables—unstressed and stressed; “pentameter” means literally five meter, and in this case, a meter of five iambs.

EX: From FAIR-est CREA-tures WE de-SIRE in-CREASE.

The Sonnet: Typically a 14-line poem which has a strict rhyme scheme: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. It always ends in a rhyming couplet, set apart from the rest of the poem, which usually twists the meaning somewhat, often with a surprise or a contradiction of what came before. HOWEVER, sometimes Shakespeare will fiddle with the number of lines, and in one poem (late in the sequence) he even removes the couplet! So be on the lookout for subtle changes.

Poetic Syntax: Syntax is how we put a sentence together, and Shakespeare bends the rules of grammar for poetic effect. For example, he often inverts a sentence like “He goes off to the store” to “Off to the store goes he.” Or, in the first sentence of Sonnet 1, he says “From fairest creatures we desire increase,” rather than “We desire increase from the fairest creatures.” Sometimes this is for rhythmic effect, or to create a rhyme. But other times, it is for emphasis—so the object doesn’t get lost in the sentence. And sometimes it’s simply to create ambiguity and mystery. The Elizabethans liked puzzles, and literary puzzles most of all. Especially when you’re writing love poems, which might require a certain amount of secrecy!

The Narrator and Audience: “These sonnets are not the unaddressed speeches of an anonymous “I.” They are utterances in which it matters who is speaking, to whom, and in what situation…Shakespeare’s speaker is not analyzing his inner experience in relation to the loved object, the “she” of most other Elizabethan sequences. Instead, the poems work like conversation, even if they get no direct answer…As with any conversation or phone call overheard, they make a demand on the interpreter to imagine who would say this to whom, and in what situation. Speech is a social activity: what one says depends on whom one speaks to and in what context” (Magnusson, Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A Modern Perspective).

The Language of Intimacy: “In Elizabethan English, power differences are strongly marked in use of pronouns: “you” is the usual address to a social superior, with “thou” tending to denote someone of lesser power or in an intimate relationship that is reciprocal. How, then, is it that the speaker dares to “thou” the addressee throughout the first fifteen sonnets?...The private “I,” withheld until Sonnet 10, begins to make quiet intrusions into the safe and publicly accountable language of instruction…this emerging “I” also shifts his pronoun of address, at least temporarily, to the more deferential “you.” Why should the addressee now become “you?...what is fascinating here is how [his consciousness] shows itself in the verbal ballet of “thou” and “you,” “we” and “I”” (Magnusson, Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A Modern Perspective).

(Reschedule) For Friday: Chaucer, "The Nun's Priests' Tale"

NOTE: Since ECU is closed on Wednesday, I'll move everything on the syllabus back. That means we WILL have class on Friday and your Paper #1 will be due the following Monday. BUT we will have class on Monday...but there won't be any work. I'll just introduce some background on Shakespeare so you won't have extra work to compete with finishing your paper by around 5pm. I'll remind you of this in class on Friday, but remember, we DO have class on Friday, so take the weekend to finish your Paper #1. 

For Friday, read the next-to-last tale in our book, "The Nun's Priest's Tale," which is an animal fable about a rooster named Chanticleer and his wife, Pertelote. It is a very odd tale, since we don't know much about the narrator, except that he is a priest traveling with the Prioress from the Prologue (Madame Eglantyne). And like all animal fables (think Animal Farm), this is a satire of human life and behavior, as is evident from all the books Chanticleer and his wife read and throw at each other as they argue about the proper interpretation of dreams! Keep this in mind as you read, and look for moments of satire in the story--especially toward people in the audience. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why do you think Chaucer gave this story--one of his most elaborate, and fantastical--to a relatively anonymous narrator? In many ways, I would expect the Prioress herself to recite this one, or even the Wife of Bath. Why might his anonymity aid the reader (and the teller) more than someone we know much better from the Prologue? Does Chaucer use this to his advantage in the tale itself?

Q2: The quarrel between Chanticleer and his wife, Pertelote, is one of the few snapshots we get in medieval literature of a 'typical' husband and wife. How do their dialogue contrast with that of the Wife of Bath with her own husbands? Does Chanticleer offer his wife "sovereignty" over their household? Or does he seem to hold sway? Despite their animal natures, do you think this is a more realistic depiction of marriage than we see in, say, The Wife of Bath's Tale? 

Q3: The term "Bathos" (or "bathetic") means a rhetorical anticlimax, or in other words, something that tries to be pathetic (deeply emotional) and fails. Ironically, what we call "pathetic" today is really "bathetic." Most authors use bathos for ironic effect, to play up emotions that really fall short of reality. What scenes in this tale are highly bathetic and why? What makes them seem a bit absurd and are played for laughs, even though they are treated seriously by the narrator? Do you think the narrator is aware of this, or is Chaucer putting him up to it? 

Q4: The story behind all the narrative embellishments and classical citations is almost comically simple: a fox tricks a rooster into being caught, and the rooster, in turns, tricks the fox into letting him go. If we just had the plot to go by, the moral would be as basic as "don't talk to strangers," or something similar. But the narrator adds a Gawain-like element which blames women for Chanticleer's downfall. Do you think this story is meant as a reposte to the Wife of Bath? Is Pertelote a caricature of her, and women like her? Or is Chanticleer, like Gawain, the butt of the joke? 

For Monday: Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Tale

Answer TWO of the questions for next time--and yes, this very short Tale has inspired five questions! There's just so much going on here...

Q1: Obviously, we can't read this Tale without the Prologue looming large in our sight. We read everything through the Wife's voice and opinions. And yet, how might we read this story differently without the Prologue? What if we didn't know the Wife was telling it, and assumed it was just a kind a fairy tale told by a man (as it really is)? What would change about the story and/or its intentions? Or would it remain roughly the same? 

Q2: Did you find it strange that the Wife of Bath is telling a story more similar to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight than The Miller’s Tale? Why do you think she chose to do this? Why might a story of chivalry misplaced, magic, and King Arthur suit her personality and interests? Does this go against the grain of the Prologue? Or develop its central themes? (Incidentally, scholars have evidence that this story was originally meant for someone else, and Chaucer gave it to the Wife in a later revision…)

Q3: The question posed to the Knight—“What thing it is that women most desire”—is somewhat ridiculous and of course utterly subjective; and yet, when the women of court hear his answer, all of them agree that it is utterly true. What do you make of this response? Does this answer flatter men or women the most? And do you think Chaucer believes it himself, or is this merely the work of the Wife?

Q4: At the very end of the story, instead of sleeping with the Old Woman as he promised, the Knight laments that "You are so loathy, and so old also,/And come from such low lineage, no doubt,/Small wonder that I wallow and writhe about” (166). How does this compare with Gawain’s own ‘failure’ before the Green Knight? Which one has failed chivalry worse? Or are they different sides of the same coin?

Q5: Does the ‘happy ending’ of the Tale simply a re-writing of the Wife’s own history with her fifth husband? Has she merely tricked him into an uneasy truce through her own lies and deceit? Or does the ending strike at something different—and more subversive—than even the Wife understands? (does Chaucer take over, in other words)?

For Friday: Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Prologue

 

No questions for Monday, but please read "The Wife of Bath's Prologue" (not the Tale) for class. We'll have an in-class writing when you get there, and here are some ideas to think about as you read...

(remember, you don't have to answer these--they're just ideas to think about)

* How does Chaucer expand his portrait of the Wife of Bath from the General Prologue in her own Prologue? What does he add or embellish? Is he more satirical here? Or more reverent? How are we supposed to respond to her characterization?

* Do you think his audience would find her interpretation of Scripture shocking or even blasphemous? What about the church figures in the Canterbury pilgrimage?

* What are the Wife’s views about marriage, considering she’s been married five times (and is looking for a sixth)? Does she believe in love or wedded bliss? Or is she ruthlessly cynical like the Miller?

* Do you feel the Wife is a forward-looking depiction of a Medieval woman,  even somewhat proto-feminist? Or is she ultimately another caricature of an over-sexed harpy that likes to beat her husbands into submission? In other words, is she just a middle-aged Alison from “The Miller’s Tale”?

* How do some of her arguments remind you of Christine de Pisan's arguments defending women (from the handout I gave you)? Do you think Christine de Pisan would agree with the Wife despite her more secular--and sexual--perspective? 

For Wednesday: Chaucer, "The Miller's Prologue and Tale"

NOTE: The story that precedes this one, “The Knight’s Tale,” is a very long and somewhat long-winded tale about two ‘knights’ in ancient Greece who are taken captive and both of whom fall in love with the same woman (Emily) through a window in their prison cell. Though friends, Arcita and Palamon each become dire foes over this love, and vow to fight to the death over her. One escapes, while the other is pardoned, and both wind up fighting an elaborate duel to win her affections (no one asks Emily who she wants). Arcita defeats Palamon, but at the last second, his horse is spooked and throws him to the ground, where he breaks his neck. So Palamon gets Emily, though she makes it clear she doesn’t want either one…but that’s not an option, so she marries Palamon. What makes this story so interesting is how the Knight tells it, with long digressions and asides which often derail his story. However, the Miller finds the story boring and offensive, and tells his story in order to mock what he feels is a pretentious tale about chivalric love. He would probably feel much the same about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight!

Answer TWO of the following...

Q1: Why do you think the Miller responds to the Knight’s tale by saying “I know a noble tale I could tell you/With which right now I'll pay back the Knight's tale”? Why might a low-class listener (who to be fair, is also quite drunk) find fault in a story like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is similar in many respects to “The Knight’s Tale”? What might he misunderstand, or simply be annoyed/offended by?

Q2: Discuss the role of Alison in “The Miller’s Tale”: is she a typically powerless woman seduced and controlled by men, or is she the actual ‘hero’ of the tale? How does the Miller—or Chaucer—want us to ‘read’ Alison, particularly in light of the Wife in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Is she another faithless ‘daughter of Eve’?

Q3: Chaucer makes an elaborate apology for this tale, writing “For the love of God, judge not what I say/as my own rude intent; I must rehearse/All of their tales, the better and the worse/Or else, my matter falsify and lose” (94). Why do you think Chaucer includes such a bawdy, low-humor tale in his collection since he could have easily cleaned it up? Do you think low comedy and sexual humor has a place in literature? Did they have different standards in the 14th century, or is Chaucer merely part of an old tradition we still take part in today? 

Q4: How are the portraits of Nicholas and Absolon similar to the portraits of the gentry and the clergy that we find in “The General Prologue”? Who is each one of them most like, and how much satire do we find in their portraits? Are we supposed to root for either of them? Or are they simply subjects of mockery?

For Monday: Chaucer, "The General Prologue" from The Canterbury Tales

For our next class, read "The General Prologue," which is the overall Preface to the entire work that follows. Here we meet all the people going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Thomas of Beckett (who was assassinated by Henry II in 1170). Some of these pilgrims don't get stories of their own, though quite a few them do, and even Chaucer tells a story of his own (which is so bad the pilgrims interrupt him!). So enjoy this overview of the entire crew and Chaucer's sly comments about each one, some of which he likes more than others...

Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: Toward the end of the Prologue, the poet-narrator (Chaucer himself?) protests that "But first I pray you...that you not blame my own vulgarity...Whoever tells a tale after a man,/He must repeat, as closely as he can,/Every last word, if that is his duty,/Even if he has to speak quite rudely,/Or otherwise, he makes his tale untrue" (23). What do you make of this excuse, since these are all fictional pilgrims, and he is making up all the stories and language? Why is he hiding behind an excuse of truth, and how might this compare to the Gawain poet's claim that he is just telling the story as he heard it in town and in other books? 

Q2: Which pilgrim’s description did you find most appealing or interesting? How does Chaucer’s language create this character and help us ‘see’ him or her? What do you feel he wanted us to connect with or admire/dislike about the character?

Q3: Where in the Prologue do we see social criticism and/or outright satire of individual pilgrims? How might this connect to the belief of the ‘common’ English man/woman, particularly regarding topics such as the nobility, the Church, fashion, and manners?

Q4: Compare the style of narration of “The General Prologue” to that of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Both were written around the same time, though in very different parts of England; that said, Chaucer might have been aware of the Gawain poem, and vice versa. Do you think they have more in common, or are they very distinct works of art?

Handout for Friday's class (goes with Paper #1--see below)

THE DAUGHTERS OF EVE: Three Medieval Texts on Women & Marriage

“I’m a realist and when you’re a realist, you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist” (Andrew Tate, c. 2020’s).

Anonymous, Against Marrying (c.1222-50)

A married man’s a slave for sure,

His flesh and spirit pain endure—

Like ox from market homeward led

To work the plough until he’s dead.

Who take a wife accepts a yoke:

Not knowing pain, with pain he’ll choke.

Who takes a wife, himself is caught

And to eternal serfdom bought...

A woman will receive all males:

No prick against her lust prevails.

For who could fill his spouse’s spout?

Alone she wears the district out.

 Her lustful loins are never stilled:

By just one man she’s unfulfilled.

She’ll spread her legs to all the men

But, ever hungry, won’t say “When.”

 

Jehan Le Fèvre, The Lamentations of Mathelous (c. 1371-2)

“Many a war is begun by women and many a murder committed throughout the world; castles are burned and ransacked and the poor made destitute. As every man and woman knows, there isn’t one war in a thousand that isn’t started by a woman and her sowing of discord. She is the mother of all calamities; all evil and all madness stem from her. Her sting is more venomous than a snake’s; there isn’t anyone who has anything to do with her that doesn’t live to regret it...

Now you can see how foolhardy it is to take a wife...What is the point of your studying the matter? Don’t get married, have mistresses. If you are weak by nature, it will be safer for you to have a hundred of them rather than devote yourself to one; treat them as if they were no more important than a straw...Woman is a monstrous hermaphrodite, proving to be a chimera with horns and a tail bigger than a peacock or a pheasant’s. Thus she bears the marks of a monster, as this treatise informs you...their sex in no way prepares them to be virtuous or to do good, indeed they are predisposed to do the very opposite.”

Christine de Pizan, from The Letter of the God of Love, (1399)

And if anyone says that we ought to believe books written by reputable men of sound judgement, who never debased themselves by lying, yet demonstrated the wickedness of women, my response is that those men who wrote such things in their books, I have discovered, never sought to do anything but deceive women in their private lives; nor could they get enough of them; they wanted a different woman every day and couldn’t be faithful even to the most beautiful. How many did David have, or King Solomon?...

Now if such men had ladies or wives who refused to pander to their every whim or who concentrated their efforts on cheating them, what is so surprising about that? For there can be no doubt that, when a man plunges into such filth, he certainly does not seek out worthy ladies or virtuous modest women of good character; these women he neither knows nor has anything to do with. He wants only those who suit his purpose, and has a constant supply of tarts and whores on his arms…and then imagines he can successfully hide his shame by slandering them with complex arguments once he has grown old and is past it.

And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, my response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart’s content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defense. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion’s share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.

God created woman in His noble image, and bestowed upon her wisdom and insight necessary to achieve salvation, and the gift of understanding…but as far as the deception is concerned, for which our mother Eve is blamed and which resulted in God’s harsh sentence, I can assure you that she never did deceive Adam, but innocently swallowed and believed the words of the devil, which she thought were sincere and true, and with this conviction she went on to tell her husband. There was therefore neither trickery nor deceit in this, for innocence devoid of all hidden malice should not be called deception.

Paper #1 Assignment

English 2643

Paper #1: Women Defamed and Defended

“You say that just as worms destroy a tree,

A wife destroys her husband, you have found;

This, they well know who to wives have been bound” (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue)

INTRO: The difficulty of reading older literature, particularly anything from the Middle Ages, is that we have so little documentary evidence from the authors themselves. Therefore, we often don’t know what their intentions were when writing works about women, chivalry, marriage, and questionable sexual relations. The majority of non-fiction writing from this period defames women, warning of the danger of these ‘daughters of Eve’ toward virtuous Englishmen. Yet literature is rarely just an instruction manual, and can be read subjectively, meaning it could not only justify a Medieval reader’s misogyny, but also attack it outright.

PROMPT: Based on the handout I gave you in class showing writers Defending and Defaming women, where would you place our two poets? Since both poets are writing stories that gravitate around the theme of women and chivalric behavior, are they satirizing the conventions towards women or the women themselves? Is Gawain yet another ‘emasculated’ alpha male? Is the Wife of Bath a parody of the ‘emancipated’ woman? Or are these works proto-feminist in their refusal to play to stereotypes?How can we find the clues within the writing itself?

REQUIREMENTS: Respond to at least ONE of the sources on the handout, and place that into conversation with BOTH of our books in class (Gawain and Chaucer). QUOTE from each one, and find passages that help you show the poets either agreeing, disagreeing, or expanding some of these views. The poets don’t have to agree with each other, either, since you might find that the Gawain poet is more (or less) enlightened than Chaucer. Also remember that the characters in the stories are not the poets, so how do you read the distinction? Does Chaucer agree with the Wife of Bath? Does the Gawain poet sympathize with Gawain’s diatribe in Fit IV?

Here is the Citation for the quotes in the handout:

Women Defamed and Women Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Ed. Alcun Blamires. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

 Page Limit: Optional, but at least more than 2 pages double spaced

Citation: Be sure to cite all quotations in your paper following MLA format

Due: Friday, February 21^st by 5pm [no class that day]

 

 

For Next Monday & Wednesday: Fits III and IV

Sorry I had to cancel class on Friday, but there was no way I could stumble through class with my cough. I'm optimistic that a weekend of rest will help. For Monday, we'll return to Fit III, and do an in-class writing over an important event in the story. Here are some things to look out for as you read:

* There are three hunts and three attempts for the Wife to seduce Gawain...do these events share allegorical connections? Look at some of the language of each, and the ideas of hunting, trapping, outwitting, and being crafty. 

* Why does the Wife accuse Gawain of not being Gawain? How has he failed her image of the great 'lover' from Arthurian romances?

* It seems strange that Gawain, a great knight, lounges behind in bed while the Lord goes hunting with his men, and almost gets killed fighting the boar. How does the poet present this: as what would have been expected of a great knight (or guest), or somewhat questionable behavior?

* Do you think Gawain trangresses his oath to the Lord by keepin the girdle? It makes sense that he doesn't give it back, since he needs it, and the Wife striclty asked him not to speak of it (and he's supposed to serve her, right?). And yet, is this a significant ethical lapse for Gawain? 

Since you might have already read Fit III, I'm going to post the questions for Wednesday and Fit IV below, but they're NOT due until Wednesday. 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Fit IV

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why does the poem suddenly introduce Morgan le Fay at the end of the poem? Was she behind this all along, as the Green Knight claims? Or is this a sleight of hand on the author's part, to reinforce the allegory? (in other words, can we trust the Green Knight's explanation--that this was really a test of Guenevere, and not Gawain at all?). 

Q2: Most importantly, does Gawain 'fail' in his final test with the Green Knight? Is the flinching a sign of cowardice or dishonor? How does the Green Knight judge him? Does Gawain agree? 

Q3: What do you make of Gawain's long rant against women? Is this another ancient work that seeks to throw women under the bus for the sins of men? Is the Lord's wife merely another Eve/Guenevere, etc. who is responsible for the 'fall' of men? Or is Gawain, himself, missing the point? 

Q4: Why do Arthur and all the knights decide to adopt the girdle themselves? Is this a way to erase his dishonor? Are they making fun of him? Is the whole thing a satire on the author's part?

For Wednesday: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fit II

SUMMARY OF FIT II: A year passes, and Gawain is nervously awaiting his departure. No one wants him to leave, but he knows he has to go. Not much else happens here, so note how the poet describes Gawain, Camelot, and the world he travels through. Gawain journeys for a long time and has many adventures, all of which are glossed over. He finally reaches a castle where a beautiful woman lives, the wife of a gracious lord. They put him up in fine style and the wife is clearly more than a little in love with him. The host says that they should play a game (uh-oh): that whatever one gets during the day, they have to give to the other at night. So the lord will go hunting and share with Gawain whatever he captures. But what will Gawain give him in return???

Answer TWO of the following as before: 

Q1: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is very conscious of nature: we always know what season it is, and the poem indulges in poetic descriptions of Gawain's travels. Why is this? What effect does this have on the poem, that it has a "place" rather than just a "setting"?

Q2: What do you make of the description of the pentangle on Gawain’s shield on page 22 (lines 620 onward)? Is this similar to the poet’s description of Camelot’s perfection in Fit I? Or is he setting up Gawain for a fall? How can we tell

Q3: Somewhat related to Q2, does Gawain seem to be an ideal, chivalric knight? Does he display proper values and humility (especially with the Lord's wife)? Is the poet using him as the paragon of knightly virtue, or do his actions belie his reputation?

Q4: Stanley Abrams, writing in A Glossary of Literary Terms, defines “allegory” as “a narrative fiction in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived to make coherent sense on the “literal” or primary, level of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of agents, concepts, and events.” Where might some aspect of Fit II fit this definition of allegory? In other words, where do we see the poet working on two levels with his plot?

For Monday: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitt 1

For our next class, read the first Fitt (basically, Chapter, or Part) of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Remember that this is a Narrative Poem, which means it tells a story, and can be read more or less like a traditional story, except that it is a poem, which means how the story is told is more important than what happens. So consider this as you read and answer the questions below.

SUMMARY OF FIT I (just in case you get lost): After a tiny introduction connecting ancient Rome to modern Britain, the poet brings us to Arthur's court at Camelot. There, they are having traditional New Year's feasts and games, and in the middle of this celebration, a strange Green Knight rides straight into the hall. He challenges the company to a game of his own, but no one takes him up on it, until Arthur, embarrassed, finally agrees to do it. But at the last minute, Gawain, his young nephew, volunteers. The game is simple: they take a chop at each other's heads, and whoever is left standing, wins. Gawain goes first and chops the Green Knight's head clean off. The Knight then picks up his head and says, "Congratulations! Now come find me in a year for your turn." 

Answer TWO of the following questions in a short paragraph—at least a few sentences, but feel free to write more if inspiration takes you. In general, be specific and don’t go for easy yes/no answers. I’m not looking for an answer here; I simply want you to think out loud and consider some of the ‘big’ ideas of the poem.

Q1: Camelot is the mythical ideal of chivalry, a kind of never-never land of knights and great heroes. Given this stereotype, does the poet basically run with this idea, or challenge it? Is it more ideal or realistic, from your reading? In other words, is Camelot all it’s cracked up to be?

Q2: Discuss the poem’s description of the Green Knight on pages 7-9 (or lines 130 to around 200): what is significant about these details? What does the poet want us to see and experience about his appearance? What does this remind you of, besides a very large and threatening knight on horseback?

Q3: According to the poem, why does the Green Knight come to challenge Arthur and his court? By barging in like this (and on a horse, no less), he’s breaking the laws of chivalry and being quite disrespectful. What would make him act so flagrantly toward the greatest king in the land?

Q4: How does this poem read (or sound) differently as a poem than a prose narrative? What details or stylistic quirks jump out at you? Why do you think the poem does this? And you might also ask, why does this work make more sense as a poem than a traditional story?

Welcome to the Course

Welcome to our Spring 2025 semester's version of British Literature to 1800! I e-mailed everyone the syllabus already, but let me know if you have any questions about the basic information. Here is the intro to the class I wrote on the syllabus, which I really feel is important to my approach to the class--finding the modern connections to these now-ancient works (though they often don't sound very ancient at all). 

This course explores the development of British/English literature from its origins in King Arthur and Courtly Love, to Shakespeare’s divine (and divinely obscene) poetry, and finally into the scandalous Eighteenth Century, where literature was beginning to reflect the emerging market of young readers, many of whom (like Austen) also became writers themselves. Despite the distance of time and geography, these works always strike me as shockingly modern, full of characters, conflicts, and conversations which might have tumbled off social media. If you think “hawk tuah” was invented in 2024, wait until you meet Chaucer’s Miller and Wife of Bath! And if you’ve ever watched a Romantic comedy, or are a fan of Bridgerton, you’re definitely indebted to Jane Austen. Everything old is new again in this course, and I look forward to exploring these timeless works with you in the beginning of 2025!

Be sure to get the books of this course, since you will need ALL of them, and yes, we're reading each one (though we won't read the entirety of The Canterbury Tales or all the plays in Sheridan's collection). If you're curious, you can scroll down and see some of the questions and assignments I gave in previous years, though none of them will be the same as I give this year. But this is basically what the blog will look like as we move through the semester.

Take care and see you on Wednesday!