ENGL 511

Writing a Paper about Chaucer: The Researched Essay

Your syllabus requires you to write a significant critical essay for this course (8-10 pages for undergraduates, 12-15 pages for graduate students) on a topic of your choosing. I am very open to a wide range of topics on a wide variety of works in Chaucer studies, so please pick something that interests you and that engages your attention and intellect. The following guidelines will help you plan that paper. You should be thinking about topics that might make good conference paper presentations. These are formal scholarly essays that would be suitable for reading at a scholarly conference or publication in an appropriate journal. Conference papers are usually ten to twelve double-spaced pages (2500-3000 words) exclusive of documentation and should take about 20 minutes to read aloud. Your papers must have a critical (i.e. argumentative) slant, involve close analysis of the text(s) you work with, and show familiarity with the scholarly issues and discussion already published on the subject you have chosen.

There are many possible approaches to writing about medieval literature; what follows is an overview of two kinds of approaches that seem to work most successfully.

You must discuss your paper topic with me by April 3*; a hard copy of the paper itself is due at 5 pm on Study Day, though it is always welcome earlier. Wise students use the Writing Center (x-2138) to help them make these papers as excellent as they can be. I am always happy to discuss outlines and drafts of your papers with you.  No paper will be graded until its final copy is submitted to www.turnitin.com. We will have draft conferences on these papers on April 19-20.

*By this date we need to discuss your idea for your paper in some detail. Bring with you a paragraph that should contain, if not a thesis statement, the question at issue you are going to wrestle with. Something like "I want to write about The Wife of Bath" is not specific enough--by this point you should be able to say something like "I want to write about how the Wife of Bath uses traditional rhetorical forms to attack men." Your bibliography may vary in length but I will expect at least half a dozen entries, with a brief (3-4 sentence) annotation of each. These items should be in 2009 MLA form and listed alphabetically as they would appear in a Works Cited list. This demonstrates that there is enough material upon which to base your argument AND that you can get your hands on it in a timely manner.

Whichever approach you choose, you should begin by carefully examining the notes and mini-bibliographies in your textbook for the character or tale you're writing about. Make sure all sources you use (whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized) are introduced with appropriate signal phrases and attribution and are properly documented in 2009 MLA style. I will be happy to answer any questions you have about MLA documentation.

There are two specialized Chaucer bibliographies online. The Studies in the Age of Chaucer bibliography, edited by Mark Allen, covers Chaucerian scholarship since 1975 and is very, very comprehensive; access it at http://uchaucer.utsa.edu.The Essential Chaucer is a selective, annotated bibliography of Chaucer studies from 1900-1984. It was first published in 1987 by G. K. Hall and Mansell Publishers Limited, and now exists online at http://colfa.utsa.edu/chaucer/ , thanks to Mark Allen of the University of Texas at San Antonio. There are a number of bibliography sites available; the fastest way to access these is through the Chaucer Metapage at UNC Chapel Hill: http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/chbib.htm   

The MLA international online bibliography is available through the Dacus library web page (http://www.winthrop.edu/dacus) and will help you find secondary sources. For medieval sources, especially anonymous texts, you may find it easier to search by the name of the work rather than the author. You may wish to use online sources such as the Labyrinth, Luminarium, Online Reference Book (ORB) or Voice of the Shuttle, all available through the "resources" button on the class web page, to supplement your research in journals and books. Do NOT limit yourself only to those articles found on J-STOR or Article1st. Do a thorough search and use PASCAL and interlibrary loan to get the BEST sources, not only the convenient ones!

Now, what do you write your paper on?

For me, the most important element of this paper is that you make an argument: that is, you raise a point about Chaucer’s work and then you defend it with reference to Chaucer’s text(s) and the critical conversation about this issue that has already taken place. It must have a clear thesis, and plenty of concrete support, both from the primary work(s) and from appropriate sources of secondary scholarship. Use the sources you find to support your answer, as you would use witnesses when making a case in a court trial; don’t turn the paper into a "information dump" collection of ‘Crane says...’ and ‘Shoaf says...’ and ‘Carruthers says...’ paragraphs that aren’t supporting some point you want to make. (Rule of thumb: you want the grade, you make the case.) Choose a thesis that lends itself to focused discussion. "Chaucer the Feminist" is a book; ‘The Significance of Damsels in Distress in the Marriage Group" is a paper topic. I will expect you to discuss some primary works of literature in detail; no papers without direct quotes from Chaucer!

1. RESPOND TO A CRITIC
Choose a critical controversy about a character or work, find a critic with whom you disagree or want to question, and respond to his or her position using a close study of the individual text and any secondary reading you have conducted. For instance, what do you think is going on with the Pardoner? Various critics recently have seen him as a symbol of spiritual sterility, a mouthpiece for Chaucer's repressed homosocial desires, or as a wickedly funny satirist. What do you think? If you come across a critic who also disagrees with your adversary's opinions, you may borrow those counter-arguments to supplement your own (be sure to cite all borrowed ideas), but make sure you exercise your own judgment. This should not be a summary of two opposing critics' positions; rather, use their disagreement to set up your argument. (You're the lawyer, so you make the case; the various critics are your witnesses, both supporting and opposing.)

2. THEMATIC/INTERPRETATIVE/HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE QUESTION
Choose a single tale or work (or at most, compare two works) and ask a particular, pointed question about it: for instance, what is Chaucer's attitude to courtly love in The Knight's Tale? To what extent does Boethius inform Troilus and Criseyde? How did Chaucer's experiences as an English agent in Italy shape his perception of mercenary knights? Then try to answer it, exploring the many possible answers that most good questions have.

3. CLOSE READING
Choose a word or phrase that seems significant in a work (or a small group of works) and study it closely and carefully--use Kane's "The Liberating Truth" as a possible model. Look closely at what the word might have meant in Middle English (this means using the Middle English Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary, not just the marginal glosses in your textbook) and consider the way(s) in which Chaucer uses/manipulates the meaning and what that means for your overall interpretation of the whole tale or group of texts. Look at how the Host manipulates pronouns of address, or study the use of “worthy,” or look at a significant word like “grace” in a limited collection of texts. Or choose a limited but significant passage (e.g. Theseus' "First Mover" speech or the Wife’s discussion of her fifth marriage) and analyze it closely, showing the connection between what you find there and the overall interpretation of the Tale the passage comes from. You'll want to use other critics' close readings in your paper, either as evidence to support your interpretation, or as hostile witnesses to be countered by your own interpretations.