I'm taking a Chaucer course in college right now and I have a 7-pg paper due in a little over a month. Knowing that a few members here are big Chaucer fans, I was wondering if some of you could help me out.

So here's my assignment:

"The behaviour of both Walter and Griselda in Chaucer's The Clerk's Tale has been called "monstrous" (Riverside 880). Walter is tyrannical, and Griselda may be accused of being an unnatural and heartless mother. The Clerk says that we are not to take the story literally (1142-62). Rather, the tale is to be understood allegorically: it is about the soul's patient acceptance of God's will. Can you square this "monstrous" tale with the religious reading that the Clerk suggests? If so, how? If not, why not? You may also want to consider the Clerk's further, and final, words (1163-1213)."

I don't want anyone to give me a thesis statement or to answer the questions for me. I haven't read the Tale yet (I have a ton of midterms and a few papers due next week, so I won't be starting this paper until after I'm done with all that) and I don't want anyone to think for me.

I'm just looking for some secondary sources. So if anyone knows of any links to academic websites, scholarly journals, articles or books I could look up that might help me with my paper, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

Try the Chaucer website at Harvard for a start: I'll admit to bias because that's where I got my PhD in medieval studies, and took all of the available Chaucer classes along the way to a dissertation on medieval drama.

http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/

The lengthy Bibliography on that website will take you to a number of studies on the tale; The Chaucer Metapage can easily be found from the Harvard site; also, googling "The Clerk's Tale AND Speculum" will bring you to a dozen or so articles in a major scholarly journal on The Clerk's Tale; you might also want to look up DW Robertson, a major exegitical scholar who defends the tale against the charges listed above. Anything else I can do to help, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks so much John! You have no idea how much that helps!

If you ever get stuck writing a paper on Chaucer, a good idea is to ask yourself, "what would Brian Boitano do?" Then visit the animatronic tourist attraction in Canterbury, Englande that recreates the magic of the miller and the wench and the squire and their amazing journey.

Question: does there exist in Englande an animatronic tourist attraction for Pilgrim's Progress?

I know, I visited that shit, since The Soft Machine animatronic attration was broken the weekend I visited da 'Bury.

I'm still waiting on a animatronic guide to The Sound and the Fury, tho.

There's a separate page on Jill Mann's feminist and other readings of Chaucer at Amazon; she's well worth following up, an excellent scholar with an interesting take on Geoffrey Chaucer:

http://www.amazon.com/Jill-Mann/e/B001IXS1NQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Also, if you look up Alcuin Blamires, on Chaucer's ethics, which would normally be gender-based according to typical readings of medieval theory, Blamires sees Chaucer as - of course - breaking the mold and striking out in new - non-Stoic - directions. I'm not sure how much this will help you with the Clerk's Tale, as I'm only going on what's available at Amazon on Blamires - the book costs over a hundred bucks, so I guess it's library time for that one.

You might also want to browse in the Medieval Feminist Journal - I haven't checked it for this purpose, but I'm betting there's something in there on The Clerk's Tale, as she is clearly offensive to specific feminism; Sheila Delany is another feminist who should be on record in there as fighting with "Patient Griselda," an object of scorn to many feminists - I now remember exchanges on the subject in the Chaucer-list online.

http://ir.uiowa.edu/mff/vol26/iss1/13/

Thanks for all the help John. I'll check those out.

I still haven't started on the paper yet though. I have a midterm today, tomorrow and another midterm on Wed. Plus I have two other papers due tomorrow and another midterm and paper due next Tues...I probably won't start on this one til a week or so before it's due. I really don't have time to start it any earlier.

I'm a great believer in the unconscious, Audrey, and how once you've got a subject in there, it nibbles away by itself. Good luck with all those other papers, too; that's an incredible load you've got there.

What's tougher is writing a good 4-page paper....

^Tell me about it!

Last year I had to write a 2-pg double-spaced paper comparing three poems: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lanval, and Paradise Lost. Honestly, in 2 pages, how is that possible?!

However, that was the only paper I got an 'A' on in that class...and I only wrote it in like an hour. I remember I was sitting in the cafeteria with an hour to kill before my next class and I didn't have any books with me, just my laptop, so I figured I'd spend the hour getting a start on my paper and before the hour was up I had finished it (much to my surprise!). And a lot of that time was spent just trying to squeeze my sentences into as few words as possible so I could fit more points into the 2 pages. I thought that cuz I'd spent so little time on it, I'd get an awful grade...and I gotta say that was one of my best college moments getting that paper back to see I got an A! (yeah, I'm a dork )

That's another thing I've noticed too. I tend to get better marks on papers I write in a rush a day or 2 before it's due, rather than ones I spend days or weeks researching, writing, editing, and rewriting. I think it's cuz when I write in a rush I just let my ideas flow and I don't go back and rewrite anything or change my ideas (cuz I don't have time) and usually my first idea is the best one I'm gonna think up, so rewriting just tends to make my papers worse.

Ok, now I'm just procrastinating. My Chaucer midterm is tomorrow morning. Time to cram!

An A for 2 pages on SGGK, Lanval and PL? Wow.

Now that all of my midterms are over with at last, I finally read the Clerk's Tale last night! My paper's due in a week, so I really have to get started on writing it....I should've started writing a week ago!