Topic for Paper #3

Literary History Topic for Paper #3

315 word limit (don’t thank me for the extra words, thank Brittany: she pointed out the curious math of Turnitin)

Choose one detail in one portrait in the General Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and discuss its meaning(s).

I’m going to go on and on about this and give you some sample details, but everything that follows is meant to be helpful.

By “detail’ I mean one fact or statement or descriptive touch, whether it seems important or unimportant, something that is expressed in a line or two of the portrait. If you detail is part of a larger pattern, certainly you can mention that, but stay focused on the one you’ve chosen. Your brief analysis should comment incisively on the detail and suggest a larger point (about the character, about the GP, about Chaucer, about literature, whatever you’d like). You do not have to settle on one simple claim and indeed it will probably be better if you don’t. Your paper will be strong if you find a detail that seems to have more than one meaning.  This could work in a number of ways.  For example, it might seem that a line seems innocent at first glance, but on second thought, has a bawdy implication, or it seems harshly critical at first glance, but actually implies a kind of sympathy, or it seems random at first glance, except that it fits into a significant pattern of imagery.

E. g.: We are told that the Monk’s horse is as “brown as a berry.”  By itself, this hardly seems very telling.  Every horse has a color and this one is brown.  “Brown as a berry” is a stock phrase dating back to the time that “brown” just meant dark.  This I the line last in the Monk’s portrait, and it feels added on, thrown in.  But when we look back at all the images of food in the portrait (and or images of round things), we realize that “berry” is a perfect way of summing up the feeling the narrator wants us to have about this character.

Begin your paper by quoting the detail you’re going to discuss.  You’ll also want to set the scene, concisely, before or after the quotation. Then build up a brief argument exploring the richness, resonance, ambiguity, and/or mysteriousness of the detail and end by offering a larger thesis: perhaps a thesis about the pilgrim being described, or about the General Prologue as a whole.

Try to push yourself in your interpretation to be as smart as possible.  The best papers will be those that find the most complexity and write about it most searchingly.

And it should go without saying that looking at the moribund content of Sparknotes can only inhibit the quality of your own ideas. 

Some suggestions (but these are only suggestions):

1.     What does it mean that the Knight’s tunic is rust-stained from his coat of mail?  Is physical appearance more or less important in this portrait than in others?  You might contrast it with his son’s appearance.

2.     “But sooth to seyn, I noot how men him calle”—the last line of the Merchant’s portrait.  Chaucer doesn’t name lots of the characters but this is the only one where it makes a point of it.  Why doesn’t he know?  What does his lack of knowledge tell us about him or the Merchant?  What’s the effect of this as a closing gesture in the portrait?  Why “But”?  Why “sooth to seyn”?

3.     The Miller’s nose: four lines to describe a nose? Does anyone else’s nose get mentioned? Why this nose?  What does this nose mean?

       Grading Rubric:

Thoughtful, insightful argument about the text: 50%

Clear and perhaps compelling writing, effective movement from idea to idea: 20%

Effective use of evidence, including close-reading of specific moments from text: 20%

Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, diction: 10%