Chaucer The Millers Tale The Millers Tale Genre
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Chaucer The Miller’s Tale
The Miller’s Tale �Genre: A fabliau (pl. , "fabliaux"), a French invention that depicts bourgeois characters in satirical or openly comic plots involving unlikely and complex deceptions, usually concerning sex and/or money. �Ordinary everyday, characters, commoners, peasants, clerks, laborers, rather than aristocrats. �Stories involve sex, food, and money, defecation, farting, not idealized love.
The Miller’s Tale �About people in absurd and amusing circumstances, often naughty sexual predicaments. �Characters are often "tricksters“. �Stories frequently involve a betrayed husband (the cuckold), his unfaithful wife, and a cleric who is the wife's lover. Parody of the courtly lover.
The Miller’s Tale �Characters: �Nicholas, a clerk or student at Oxford. �John, a carpenter, rents rooms to the clerk, dresses his young wife in expensive clothing. �Alison, the carpenter’s much younger wife. �Absalom, a clerk, who now serves the priest in the cathedral, more interested in dressing well and pursuing the ladies of the town.
The Miller’s Tale �The Miller’s Prologue �Miller is drunk. �He’ll pay off the Knight’s tale. �“told his tale like any low-born clown” �Narrator apologizes. (60 -75) �Nicholas – student. Versed in love, could tell the weather. �John –carpenter. Jealous. �Cuckoldry.
The Miller’s Tale �Description of Alison. (45 -84) �Nicholas makes a pass at Alison. (85 -95). Compare to the behavior of a knight. �Is she willing, or not? �She’ll do it, if he can keep it a secret. �Absalom – parish clerk. �Knows how to bleed, trim hair, shave, write a deed, dance, sing.
The Miller’s Tale �Wants to make out with Alison. Sings by her window. �Alison wants Nicholas to make a fool of her husband. Why? �What is the trick he plays on John? �John can’t sin with his wife before the flood comes. �Why does John believe Nicholas’s predictions? �Nicholas and Alison slip out and go to bed. �Absalom decides to visit Alison that night.
The Miller’s Tale �Absalom asks for a kiss. �A kiss on the ass. �Absalom pays back. �John makes a fool of himself.
