ENGL 6190 - Chaucer and Gower

(crosslisted) MEDVL 6190

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

A. Galloway.

Chaucer: founder of English Literature. Gower: who that? “Friend of Chaucer”? The most famous non-famous founder of English Literature? A dull moralist, or a brilliant literary interlocutor with Chaucer? This seminar is intended to introduce both of them, or, for those who know something of them, offer opportunities to think further about them in new ways, and in either case use their known interactions to think about literary communities, literature and its social setting, and literary “debates.” The seminar will not require prior knowledge of Chaucer or medieval English literature, but we will arrange an additional weekly hour or so to practice reading and understanding fourteenth-century London English. We’ll also read some modern anthropological theory, some readings of sources, and a selection of critical writing.