Contact Ken Bleeth
Education
A.B., Harvard College; A.M., Ph.D., Harvard University
"What W.B. Yeats called 'the fascination of what's difficult' initially drew me to medieval studies. In my teaching and writing, I try to be attentive to the philological challenges of medieval texts; by observing the ways in which these texts are linguistically, structurally, and conceptually unlike more modern discourses, students will begin to understand something about medieval otherness- the historical and cultural difference that the Middle Ages has represented in the Western consciousness." - Ken Bleeth
Professor of English
Director of Medieval Studies Program
Joined Connecticut College: 1979
Specialization:
- Medieval Literature
- Chaucer
Professor Bleeth's main area of scholarly interest is medieval English literature, especially the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. He teaches courses on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in Medieval Epic and Romance, and a team-taught, interdisciplinary course entitled Text, Image, and Event in Medieval Europe. He also teaches an upper-level course in Elizabethan Poetry, the first part of the Survey of English Literature, and an introductory course in Literary Interpretation.
Bleeth's recent publications include "The Tale New-Translated" (review of W. S. Merwin, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation), Yale Review (2003); "Orientalism and the Critical History of Chaucer's Squire's Tale," in Chaucer's Cultural Geography (Routledge, 2002); and " 'The Imitation David': Collaboration, Plagiarism, and the Making of a Gay Literary Tradition in David Leavitt's 'The Term Paper Artist' " (with Julie Rivkin), Publications of the Modern Language Association 116 (2001).
Bleeth's other publications include Chaucer's Physician's, Squire's and Franklin's Tales: An Annotated Bibliography, 1900-2000. The Toronto Chaucer Bibliographies (University of Toronto Press); "Chaucerian Gardens and the Spirit of Play," Tennessee Studies in Literature; chapter on Chaucer's Physician's Tale," in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Boydell & Brewer).
Work in progress includes "Old and New in the Poems of MS Cotton Nero A.x" (with Kevin Gustafson); "Scratchies" (essay on reissues of early vocal recordings for The Yale Review); essay on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; "The Wife of Bath's Space of Agency" (essay).
He presented papers on "The Wife of Bath's Space of Agency" and "Chaucer's 'Physician's Tale' and "Remembered Texts'" at the New Chaucer Society Conferences in London (2000) and in Glasgow (2004).
In 1999, Bleeth was in residence at the Centro Studi Ligure per le Arte e le Lettere, Fondazione Bogliasco, Genoa, Italy. A recipient of a Younger Humanist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bleeth also received the Charles Hall Grandgent Award from the Dante Society of America.
Professor Bleeth serves the College on several committees, most recently and at present: the Provost's Council, 1998-99; Faculty Compensation Committee (2000-), Advisory Committee to the President and the Dean of the College on Judiciary Board Proceedings (2001-), and the Graduate Studies Committee (2005-).
Bleeth is a member of the Modern Language Association, the New Chaucer Society, and the Medieval Academy of America, and is listed in the Directory of American Scholars and the Repertoire internationale des medievistes.
Visit the medieval studies program site.