Canterbury Tales Study Day - Thursday 21 November 2024

Geoffrey Chaucer is often described as the father of English literature, and his Canterbury Tales is probably his best-known work. On this study day we join Dr Sarah James to explore the contexts within which Chaucer lived and worked, and learn more about his fascinating life story.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, looking at images of historic manuscripts, early printings of his work and some of the images that have been produced of Chaucer's pilgrims over the centuries, we will learn about what pilgrimage actually meant in the late fourteenth century and think about how this affected his writing, much of which is anything but religious!

As well as looking at some of the characters he created, and thinking about their virtues and vices, we will also consider how a text like Canterbury Tales was intended to be read - was it courtly literature for an aristocratic elite, or was it intended to be read by pilgrims walking to Canterbury to help pass their time, or was it even an early example of popular literature? In thinking about this, the fact it is one of the earliest surviving literary works to be written in English after the Norman Conquest might tell us something about who was Chaucer's intended audience.

We will read and decode sections from some of the lovely and lively stories included in The Canterbury Tales, and we will practise reading - and pronouncing! - the stories in their original Middle English (not as difficult as you might imagine), to think about how the meaning might change depending on whether we read it in the original form of English or a modern 'translation'.

Fun, frolicking and sometimes downright rude, The Canterbury Tales is a foundational text for English culture that has influenced later writers and other artists for over 600 years.

No previous experience of literary study or medieval history is needed. All welcome.

Class Recordings

These classes are not recorded

Attendance Certificate

Successful completion of this course leads to the award of an Imperial College attendance certificate

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