Event Host: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Short Description: Medieval literature scholar and former J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University Paul Strohm will speak at Ohio State at 4 p.m. on Nov. 30 on "'This Auntient Poet': Chaucer and the Streams of Parnassus."
The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies will host a lecture from Paul Strohm, medieval literature scholar and Anna S. Garbedian Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at Columbia University, at 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 30 at the 18th Avenue Library, where Strohm will discuss "'This Auntient Poet': Chaucer and the Streams of Parnassus."
Abstract: The Elizabethan poets wanted the benefits of a literary tradition, with Geoffrey Chaucer as its progenitor, but also chafed at its restrictions. They honored him as the father of English poetry, but sniped at his accomplishments, declared him over the hill, and even, at worst, derided him as vulgarian and clown. This lecture will acknowledge the full spectrum of such minimizations, but will then turn to a counter-tradition of more wholehearted acceptance, as exemplified by Robert Greene’s 1592 "Vision." In this seldom-noticed work, Greene stages a spirited debate between Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower about the means and proper objectives of poetry. Chaucer takes the fall and loses the debate, but receives his most whole-hearted Elizabethan reading along the way.
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Most recently J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University, Paul Strohm joined the Columbia faculty in fall 2003. His area of principal interest is medieval literature with a recent emphasis on transitions from 'medieval' to 'early modern.' His teaching and research have concerned the 'affiliated text,' with special attention to textuality and history and to genre and social change.
