ENGL6017 · English
Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
Fulfills pre-1700 andSeminar requirement for undergraduates. In fourteenth-century London, Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower were frenemies. Chaucer was the upwardly mobile bureaucrat, ready to poke fun at everyone; Gower was the well-heeled and straitlaced lawyer. Their bodies of poetry, spanning four decades and three languages, influence and respond to one another. We will read the two poets side by side, with attention to topics of mutual relevance such as multilingualism, politics, literary form, source study, and social status. This seminar has no overlap with the syllabus of ENGL6041: Game of Thrones: Medieval English Political Poetry. No prior knowledge of Middle English required. Gower's French and Latin texts read in translation.
Course experience
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Organization
4.9 / 5
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Challenge
4.9 / 5
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Attendance
4.8 / 5
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Assignments
5.0 / 5
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Weekly effort
~5
hours per week
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Across time
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Spring 2024
1 sectionFall 2020
1 section