Remember, the format of the final will be the same as that of the mid-term exam, only longer.  The essays will be comprehensive while the rest will primarily cover material we've read after mid-term.

So, okay, little Chaucerians, here we go:

• What significant act occurred in England in 1290?  (Hint:  it didn't completely eliminate those acted against.)
• What possible reasons might we have for the Nun's Priest to be the one telling Chaunticleer's fabliaux?
• Be thinking hard about that old Retraction.
• What is "The Marriage Group"?  (This means know both the tales and the issues involved in Kittredge's interpretation.)
• Chaucer draws upon various, and varied, genres in his writing.  What are some, where do they occur, and how (and perhaps why) does Chaucer use/improve them?
• How might you define the logical exercise called an "impossibilia"?  Where have you seen one?
• What is it called when a poet calls out to someone or something for inspiration?  How is it classically used and how used in Chaucer?
• Why do you suppose that Walter comes off fairing so much worse in our judgments than the Wife of Bath, since both spend their lives demonstrating their "mastery"?
• When you think about Chaucer versus "Chaucer" what is it you're thinking about?
• Define irony and know how it's used in one, or two, of The Canterbury Tales.
• First there's The Miller's Tale.  Then there's The Merchant's Tale.  Then there's The Franklin's Tale.  How are these three turns on the same basic story -- and how do they end up differentiating themselves?
• What links The Miller's Tale to The Nun's Priest Tale?
• Again, what's the Great Western Schism?
• What's the difference between regular clergy and secular clergy?
• What's a break in decorum, according to this class?
• What is "heigh style"?
• When Chaucer first began writing, what tended to characterize his prosody?
• As he continued, what innovation(s) did he bring to English poetry?
• Name two of Chaucer's most prominent English contemporaries (and know what they wrote).
• What's a cosmology?
• Know the plots and themes of the various tales -- and who talks to whom in the prologues, too.
• What's "blood libel"?
• Think of the most important thing that you've learned this semester.  Be ready to talk not only about what it is, but what criteria you're using to define "important." 
• Experience wrestles authority.  Who wins the ram?
• No, seriously, "which was the mooste fre"?
• What tale (well, teller) reverses the presumed lesson of the tale itself in its (his) closing remarks?
• God versus the Bod.  Explain.  (Think Wife of Bath.)
• What Christian tale is religiously intolerant, and why?
• Why do we keep talking owls?
• Remember your listing/lesting/lusting in here.
• What's the problem with the "Tale of Sir Topas"?
• Okay, so detail why (in what ways) the "problem" occurs.
• What's the difference(s) between Griselde and Constance?
• Did the Retraction remind you of anything in Shakespeare?  The answer is "yes," so what was it?
• What lessons about taking advice might we learn from the post-Fall Break tales?  Where do we learn them in particular?
• Everybody takes shots at the Wife of Bath.  Find three and discuss what they're arguing with/about.
• The Merchant is pretty unhappily married, as his Prologue tells us.  Where else might we see evidence of this in his tale? 
• What is a "life of a saint" when we're thinking about Chaucer's age?
• Do you agree with Kittredge that the Franklin's Tale resolves the problems that arise in the other tales of marriage?
• Man of Law's Tale:  "Wommen are born to thraldom and penance/ And to been under mannes governance" (286-7):  How is this standard of gender roles supported or contradicted by the tale itself?
• What verse forms does Chaucer introduce into English, and perfect, in "The Man of Law's Tale" and "The Clerk's Tale"?
• What's a foreshortened line of verse -- like those few used in "The Tale of Sir Thopas" called?
• What is a "Miracle of The Virgin" as we've discussed it in here? 
• Is The Canterbury Tales a religious work?  (How's that for a question for you?)
  
  
  And I think I'm done.  Review the tales, review the presentations, think about all that you've learned and be ready to use it.  That's not so hard, is it?