English 45A

Book List

Chaucer, Geoffrey : The Canterbury Tales (original spelling edition, ed. Jill Mann) ; Greenblatt, Stephen: The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume B

Description

This is a story of discovering, then forgetting, then discovering again the fact that a particular language can be used not only for communication but also for creation. At the beginning of our story Caedmon, a shepherd, is called upon in his dream to praise God in poetry. A thousand years later, John Milton calls upon the “Heav’nly Muse” to sing “Of Man’s First Disobedience.” In between them, English turns from its humble beginnings into a medium of literature. In this course, we trace this transformation by reading works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton.

(If you already own an original-spelling edition of The Canterbury Tales, you may use it for this course.)