OSHER 899 - An Introduction to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Composed in Middle English around 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales consists of 24 tales presented as a story-telling contest among pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to visit a saint's shrine. This course will tackle four of the most famous tales, along with the General Prolog, as much as possible in the original language. To accomplish this, students will be offered the choice of using either an "interlinear" version, in which each line of the original is followed by a prose translation into modern English, or a Middle English version with extensive notes and glosses for unfamiliar words.