Pearsall, Derek.
R. F. Yeager and Brian W. Gastle, eds. Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 31-35.
Surveys Gower's reception among fellow poets and critics, including comments on the effect of Chaucer upon Gower's reputation and the value of comparing their versions of individual stories.
Clopper, Lawrence M.
Thomas A. Goodmann, ed. Approaches to Teaching Langland's "Piers Plowman" (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2018), pp. 112-19.
Treats GP and Langland's Prologue in relation to the traditional model of three estates, arguing that the order of the pilgrims in GP reveals inadequacies in the "trifunctional model" (fight, pray, labor) and alludes to the Fall of Humanity in the…
Braswell, Mary Flowers.
Austin Sarat, Cathrine O. Frank, and Matthew Anderson, eds. Teaching Law and Literature (New York: Modern Language Association, 2011), pp. 155-61.
Offers a pedagogical unit in which advanced students explore similarities between CT (especially GP) and manor court records, capitalizing on Chaucer's familiarity with legal proceedings. Suggests that the "manor court seems to have influenced…
Hall, Kathryn A.
South Atlantic Review 72.4 (2007): 59-71.
Encourages pairing Margery Kempe and WBT in British literature surveys, noting that Kempe was "a good deal more vulnerable than the fictitious Wife of Bath."
Describes the pedagogical use of museum objects (from the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame) in support of a Freshman Seminar in medieval literature, with particular focus on CT, Santiago de Compostela, and pilgrimage.
Butler, Richard J.
[Jay Ruud, ed.] Papers on the "Canterbury Tales": From the 1989 NEH Chaucer Institute, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota ([Aberdeen, S.D.: Northern State University, 1989), pp. 211-36.
Presents for high school teachers several "exercises and activities that may be useful in a unit on Chaucer and the middle ages," including objectives, questions to consider, paper topics, audio-visual resources, and supplementary materials.
Cross, J. E.
English: The Journal of the English Association 10, no. 59 (1955): 172-75.
Surveys Astr to identify Chaucer's "teaching method," finding evidence of his attention to teaching "technically-minded small boys" that clashes at times with concern for a wider audience. Considers Astr to be "a dull, intentionally prolix but…
Robinson, Olivia.
Daisy Delogu and Anne-Hélène Miller, eds. Approaches to Teaching the "Romance of the Rose" (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2023), pp. 227-36.
Describes goals and methods of teaching the "Roman de la Rose" in undergraduate courses that include Middle English literature. Includes attention to manuscript illustrations and to intertextual relations of MerT to Rom.
Includes thirteen essays by various authors and an introduction by the editor, all focusing on teaching medieval narratives that involve rape, attempted rape, or false accusation while attending to twenty-first-century awareness of rape, sexual…
Raybin, David.
Helen Phillips, ed. Chaucer and Religion (Cambridge: Brewer, 2010), pp. 189-95.
Offers approaches to teaching ethics and spirituality in CT. Provides models and suggestions for teaching CT, and for preparing seminars and conferences designed for new or experienced teachers.
Jost, Jean E.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 8.1: 61-69, 2000.
Recommends a learning-centered approach to teaching CT in which students collaborate to produce a creative imitation of Chaucer's work. Description of college-level assignment included.
Pugh explores opportunities for defining gender conventions of romance by examining parodies: knightly masculinity in Guerin's "Long-Assed Berenger" and in Th, and gender construction in episodes from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Sylvester, Louise.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 81-95.
Explores an apparent disconnect between pedagogical goals of classes that study Chaucer's literature and those that study the history of the English language, suggesting that sociolinguistic approaches can help bridge the gap.
Horobin, Simon.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 96-104.
Argues that analyzing Chaucerian manuscripts and comparing them with edited versions can help students discover important principles of variation and evidence.
Clifton, Nicole.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 20. 1 (2013): 99-109.
Offers an approach to teaching MLT that encourages "students to question their own identities and own attitudes toward race and, in doing so, come to a more complex understanding" of Chaucer's story.
Pedagogy, syllabus, sample assignments, and itineraries for a semester-long, London-based excursion course on English medieval literature, including Chaucer.
Ridley, Florence (H.)
Robert Graybill, Judy Hample, and Robert Lovell, eds. Teaching the Middle Ages IV (Terre Haute: Indiana State University Press, 1990), pp. 1-26.
Pedagogical commentary on CT aligned with reader-response theory and affective stylistics.
Hennequin, M. Wendy.
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 24, no. 1 (2017): 121-40.
Justifies the use of historical re-creation assignments in university classrooms, offering in appendices a sample assignment and a grading rubric. Describes examples of more and less successful student projects, with commentary and illustrations,…
In WBP, Chaucer represents the Wife of Bath as Woman conceived in terms of masculine discourse. His presentation makes authoritative misogynist discourse both familiar and available for questioning.
Ambrisco describes teaching SqT as an "unsolved problem in Chaucerian reception"--SqT is a work favored by the Franklin and early readers such as Spenser and Milton, but decried or ignored by formalist critics. Opening class discussion to the…
Szell, Timea.
English Language Notes 47.1 (2009): 147-57.
Pedagogical report on how to study animal and human identity in Hebrew Scripture, Ovid, and medieval narrative to acquire the interpretive skills to understand postmodern texts and culture. Animals in the imagery and narrative of KnT enable readers…
Lynch, Kathryn L.
Richard F. Gyug, ed. Medieval Cultures in Contact. Fordham Series in Medieval Studies, no. 1 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003), pp. 213-22.
Lynch describes how a team-taught, cross-cultural course in European and Islamic literatures discovers dimensions in the literatures, including SqT, FranT, and MLT.
Havely, Nicholas (R.)
Paul Strohm and Thomas J. Heffernan, eds. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Proceedings, No. 1, 1984 (Knoxville, Tenn.: New Chaucer Society, 1985), pp. 51-59.
The development of literary imagery and language in TC, book 3, reveals the distinctiveness of Chaucer's approach to Dante's "Purgatorio;" Chaucer's power and control over the language far exceed Boccaccio's in the "Filostrato."
Delany, Sheila.
A. P. Foulkes, ed. The Uses of Criticism (Bern: H. Lang, 1976), pp. 77-95. Reprinted in R. A. Shoaf, ed. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde: "Subgit to alle Poesy": Essays in Criticism. MRTS, no. 104 (Binghamton N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994), pp. 29-46.
In TC Chaucer deliberately uses the technique of alienation or aesthetic distancing through devices that render ordinary characters and situations peculiar and unexpected.
Friend, Myrna M.
Open accessPh.D. Dissertation. McGill University, 1961. Accessible at https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/kh04dt074; accessed November 15,2021.
Examines the "process whereby realism evolved in Chaucer's work," particularly the "stylistic devices by which it was secured," considering Anel, TC, and various aspects of CT: early and late tales, the frame, and fabliaux.
