Chaucer Cantebury Tales Comparative Essay

Answer ONE of the following questions. You are required to make substantial and detailed reference to TWO major texts from the module: for the purposes of this exercise, the ‘General Prologue’, ‘Wife of Bath’s Prologue’ and ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale’ are deemed separate texts; two short poems are considered equivalent to a major text. You may not write about the text discussed in your Passage Analysis, but can revisit the text on which you presented if you wish to do so. The intellectual framework of your essay and the depth of textual analysis should reflect a substantial amount of the reading and thinking you have done over the semester. The word limit is 2,500 words (this means you are strictly limited to 2,500 words and must not go beyond that). Your total word-count will include quotes and footnotes, but excludes your bibliography, which should draw on the extensive, customized bibliographies on BlackBoard for each topic on the course. You are encouraged to exercise caution in using non-recommended sources from the Internet. You may include images and/or manuscript materials if appropriate. Make sure that you understand the regulations on plagiarism and guidelines on the presentation of work. These can be found in the English Undergraduate Programme Guide – on Blackboard, under English Admin year 2, Skills and Resources (in the left-hand menu). Remember to leave sufficient time to check you have appropriately credited all works used.

24. Discuss the conflicting claims of amor and amicitia in The Canterbury Tales.
25. ‘All auctores are of the same value, all are timeless. This is and remains characteristic of the entire Middle Ages’ (Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, p.51). Discuss in relation to Chaucer’s work.
26. ‘Chaucer invites our understanding of the poet’s ambivalence about language: his skepticism about its capacity to express truth and his wonderment at its capacity to enthral us in illusion’ (Jordan, ‘Vision, Pilgrimage, and Rhetorical Composition’, p.200). Discuss Chaucer’s use of language or his attitude towards it.
27. Consider the relationship between the beautiful and the good in Chaucer’s work.
28. Is Theodore Wedel right to say that Chaucer ‘accepts the rule of the stars over man’s destinies as an unavoidable fact, and merely counsels Stoic resignation’ (Mediaeval Attitude Toward Astrology, p.146)?
29. Discuss the relationship between pathos and transience in the Chaucer’s work.
30. Is Chaucer a writer fascinated by the values of the ruling elite?
31. To what extent does Chaucer show that ‘the comic is a didactic weapon in the service of reason’ (Johnston, History of English Laughter, p.97)?
32. Can Chaucer be described as a moral writer?
33. Comment on the depiction of the human condition in Chaucer’s work.
34. ‘Just as there were different concepts or ideals of womanhood in the Middle Ages, so too there were different attitudes toward love and marriage’ (Henry Ansgar Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer, p.286). Comment on Chaucer’s treatment of marriage.
35. Consider Chaucer’s manipulation of the conventions of genre in The Canterbury Tales.
36. Comment on the ways in which Chaucer depicts the Church in The Canterbury Tales.
37. ‘Rebelliousness in the Middle Ages was usually rebelliousness within the limits of the hierarchical ideal’ (D. W. Robertson, Preface to Chaucer, p.11)? Discuss, in relation to any two texts you have studied.
38. Is S.H. Rigby justified in referring to ‘feminist Chaucer’?
39. Would you agree with Helen Cooper that ‘the imposition of order on disorder’ is one of the ‘dominant motifs’ of Chaucer’s work (Structure of the Canterbury Tales, p.95)?
40. Discuss Chaucer’s treatment of women and social class.
41. ‘Chaucer’s poetry prefigures the post-medieval view of intertextuality insofar as it displays a strong awareness of its position in a network of intertextual references’ (Urban, Fragments, p.85). Consider Chaucer’s use of intertextuality.
42. In what ways and to what extent does Chaucer show that ‘the status of learning in respect of the pursuit of salvation is problematic’ (White, Nature and Salvation, p.77)?
43. Examine the ways in which any one of The Canterbury Tales responds to another.
44. ‘A character emerges, certainly, and if Chaucer was not really like that, does it matter much?’ (Burgess, Homage to Qwert Yuiop, p.254). Discuss the presence of Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, both as pilgrim and narrator.
45. Discuss the treatment of fins’ amor in Chaucer’s work.
46. ‘To be honourable is to love trouthe, not to love honour’ (Brewer, Tradition and Innovation in Chaucer, p.94). Analyse the role of trouthe in Chaucer’s work.
47. ‘Depictions of magic in medieval literature often tease the reader with uncertainties about the boundary between illusion and reality’ (Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, p.43). Discuss Chaucer’s treatment of magic and the supernatural.
48. Examine the role of purveiaunce in The Canterbury Tales.
49. ‘For Chaucer…one can escape Fortune in this world only through virtue; one can escape Fortune entirely only in eternity’ (Morgan, Chaucer and the Theme of Mutability, p.84). Examine Chaucer’s treatment of Fortune.