Chaucer: Five Canterbury Tales
Brought to you by Hopkins at Home
May 26, 2020 - June 23, 2020 (5 weeks)
Tuesdays, 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Geoffrey Chaucer is sometimes called the 'father of English literature' not only because he wrote so well but because he has been, and remains, a poet who had a unique power to capture in language the foibles and strengths, the folly and wisdom, and the rich variety of perspectives that make us human. Though his the language in which he wrote (Middle English) requires an initial stretch for modern readers, it is quickly mastered and well worth the effort, since Chaucer was also the first poet in English to use the language with such finesse and precision. We will read five of the most accomplished of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and I will work to explain his unusual and innovative techniques for bringing the fourteenth-century England to life in language.
All texts are available in Middle English with a Modern English translation on the Harvard Chaucer website:
https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/text-and-translations
Texts are also available in Middle English (with Modern English glosses) in the following readily-available editions:
The Canterbury Tales: Seventeen Tales and the General Prologue, 3rd ed., ed. V.A. Kolve et al. (New York, NY: Norton, 2018).
The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, ed. David Lawton (New York, NY: Norton, 2019).