Chaganti, Seeta. "'Merciless Beauty' and carceral justice." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/merciless-beauty-and-carceral-justice. [Date accessed].

"Merciless Beauty" and carceral justice

Introducing students to Middle English and the untimely juxtaposition.

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Seeta Chaganti
University of California, Davis

“Merciless Beauty” is a poem written in a late 14th-century English that may or may not be Chaucer’s but is highly comparable to Chaucer’s usage. Several of its features make it an excellent poem to begin a Chaucer class that is reading the texts in Middle English. By asking students to translate the poem, they develop their skills for reading Middle English and become intimate with the formal structure of the rondel. Once they've gained an intimacy with the poem and feel comfortable with its language, the untimely juxtaposition is introduced: the film The Prison in 12 Landscapes. In this moment, students are asked to make connections between the poem and the film and their formal examinations of time, incarceration, and repetition.

Further learning

Video

Juxtaposing Chaucer

Seeta Chaganti offers an introduction to her "untimely juxtaposition" method, which places Chaucer's texts next to modern artifacts like film, visual art, and contemporary literature to open new avenues of exploration and discussion with students.

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Discussion questions

Teaching "Merciless Beauty" in juxtaposition

When teaching "Merciless Beauty" alongside the film The Prison in 12 Landscapes, discussion questions can help students engage with topics of incarceration and justice.

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