ALSO: Since we have a
longer break than usual, you might also want to read “The Wife of Bath’s
Prologue and Tale,” since it’s much longer and we’ll be reading/discussing it
on Friday.
Answer TWO of the
following...
Q1: Why do you think the
Miller responds to the Knight’s tale by saying “I’ve got a splendid tale for
the occasion/To pay the night out with, and cap his tale”? What is he
responding to (or irritated by)? Why
might a lower class listener (who to be fair, is quite drunk) find fault in the
Knight’s tale of bathetic chivalry?
Q2: Related to the question
above, how is “The Miller’s Tale” a comic variation on “The Knight’s Tale”?
What are the similarities and the slight—but telling—differences? How can we
tell that he’s winking at the Knight as he tells it, as if to say “do you
recognize your tale?” Consider how films today often parody other more serious
films...how is the Miller playing into this tradition?
Q3: Discuss the role of
Alison in “The Miller’s Tale”: is she a typically powerless woman seduced and
controlled by men, or is she the actual ‘hero’ of the tale? How does the
Miller—or Chaucer—want us to ‘read’ Alison?
Q4; Chaucer makes an elaborate apology for this tale, writing “I’m sorry that I must repeat it here/And therefore, I entreat all decent folk/For God’s sake don’t imagine that I speak/With any evil motive...And so, should anyone not wish to hear,/Turn the page over, choose another tale.” Why do you think Chaucer includes such a bawdy, low-humor tale in his collection since he could have easily cleaned it up? Do you think low comedy and sexual humor has a place in literature? Did they have different standards in the 14th century, or is Chaucer merely part of an old tradition we still take part in today?
3. Allison is a curious individual within the work. At first she appears to be a helpless woman, but as the story continues, she becomes the centerpiece. I think Chaucer wants us to see her as someone that needs to be around in the lives of men. I also think he wants to show that women have their own personality and charm that make them worth the fight and something to try to keep. The Miller seems to take the view that woman are not bad in the sense that Knight sees them, that they are a good necessity.
ReplyDelete4. I think that Chaucer is practicing in a type of humor that has been around for a while, though it may be seen differently throughout history. As previously said in class and in the questions, Chaucer apologizes for quoting the characters within this piece. He does this either because he actually means it or he’s trying to create a tale that’s entertaining to his audience. Because he knows who is hearing this, he would try to create something that could relate his audience, rather it be through religious individuals, a knight, or even a miller. The result of all these calculations in Chaucer’s mind is to create an inappropriate tale.
Yes, in some ways Alison is a foreshadowing of The Wife of Bath, who you'll read about next time. She knows how to handle men and is basically juggling three quite skilfully in this tale. Note that the whole "kissing her ass" idea is her idea, not Nicholas'. The Carpenter is worried about Alison being seduced, but she's quite willing to do the seduction herself. Does this make her a typical "whore" in literature (something older literature loved to point out), or is she simply being more independent and not letting men run her life?
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ReplyDeleteDana Welch
ReplyDeleteQ2.
I think that the Miller's Tale was just a parody on the Knight's Tale. It had the same theme of love and two men fighting over the same girl, but it put it in a more comical and satirical manner. It is just like a parody movie in the sense that it takes everything and makes it look inappropriate and immature.
Q3. It seems as though Allison is secretly, as her husband doesn't know the things she is up to, a very independent woman which is very rare in this time and is somewhat a seductive trait to have as the men seem to be attracted to women who are independent, at least in the stories we read so far.
Good, but maybe give a bit more detail? Especially with Alison: where do you see her being independent and secretive? What clues tell us how Chaucer (or the Miller) want us to see/read her?
Delete#2
ReplyDeleteI honestly had no idea that it was a parody until mentioned above! I definitely can see it now. The stories both contain two men who are smitten in love. Except Alison loves one man. Both stories are backed by someone making fun of somebody. (i.e. The Miller to the Knight's tale) There's a slight difference in the stories with the formality of it. And also the Miller's story is the more immature and more vulgar than the rest! No shame in his story game.
#3
Alison seems to be this innocent little girl. Only around 18. From the get-go, I should say, nobody writes a story and describes her so fully and beautifully without making her the focus of the story. After ready this story, I feel really bad for the carpenter. Like really bad! Alison has a young spirited and independent heart like almost every 18 year old. I do not think that is cultural. Every 18 year old is independent. She is most definitely a seducer and the big role in this story.
Yes, the Miller's tale is a version of The Knight's Tale on multiple levels. On one, he's making of chivalric romances since he thinks the Knight tried to tell his own without any satirical intention. On another, he's also directing his tale to the Knight and trying to call him out, though also trying to entertain the party. It's a wonderful tale, dirty but quite funny, even though I think it's a story he's retelling rather than making up (he claims to be drunk, after all).
ReplyDelete3. At the beginning of the tale, Alison is a typical 18 year old – modest and dedicated to her new husband. It isn’t until Nicholas not only begins to, but persists to, pursue her that Alison’s role in the story has a bigger impact. With the influence of Nicholas, Alison seems to break from her status quo of a modest, dependent young woman to be a woman who is entirely the opposite. Instead of being loyal to her husband, she indulges her inner desire to be with Nicholas – not only that, but she also takes part in a scheme alongside her new lover to do away with her husband entirely. This among other silly and distasteful happenings throughout the tale only add to the development of Alison as an ill-modest, trouble-causing flirt.
ReplyDelete4. If Chaucer didn’t include a low-humor tale to this caliber in his collection, he wouldn’t exactly be representing the lower class accurately. To have cleaned up the humor would have been to falsify the condition of the tale as this is likely how a tale such as this would have been told by a miller back then. Writings such as this, being a low comedy, certainly do have a place in literature. Writing is a free art form – The Canterbury Tales bear witness – and for any form of art to not be free would be to rid the art of its art-ness, making it structured, which is exactly what the Renaissance was in opposition to. The Renaissance was an age of freedom and self-expression, and Chaucer does very well to bring that age to life in his collection of tales.
Q1. I feel like the Miller is upset with the Knights tale because, as we have mentioned, the Knight not only tried to tell a tale of Chivalric Love by making a mockery of it and not staying on subject, but he also tried to share a bit of a “raunchy” part of the story by describing Emily in the temple but then backed out of that as well. So, if anything I feel like the Miler would find this story to be just a complete tease and letdown. So then the Miler, like any person who may feel cheated out of their time by a horrible story, he decides to make fun of it and go with his version in the way that the Knight never would have. If anything the Miller is trying to say, “This is the way that story would have been told, not that Knight chivalry, honor b.s. Now, THIS is a good story that is actually worth your time and humor.”
ReplyDeleteQ4. It wouldn’t make much sense for Chaucer to tell this story in the common language of English while leaving out the vernacular of those who use it the most. It also gives the reader a sense of the realism and distinction between each character. The Miller shines off the page in a way the Knight paled. If the whole story was told in the same way as the Knight, that would defeat the beauty of Chaucer writing this story in his common tongue. It wouldn’t make any sense to write this story in a commoner language only to have it be catered to those of the place court yard, because it still wouldn’t make sense to them either. If anything Chaucer, and Dante, may have, in a way, started the tradition we have today. This way of storytelling brings a sense of realism and helps readers to have more sympathy towards the other people around them, because they finally got a glimpse of what life is like for the other half.
QA1: This is a question with multiple routes to an answer. I can see how there is more than one way to look at the situation so I will be proceed with what I feel is the most accurate!
ReplyDeleteI think the Miller presents his story in a flamboyant "mine is better" manner by his introduction because he is dissatisfied with the Knight's tale. It's as if he is saying, "heck! I am a MILLER and even I can do better than that!" He might think so because he is drunk, yes, but he might just hate the whole idea that the Knight described such a 'horrible' (overly bathetic) story and wants to put him on blast. The narrator stresses to us by the use of dialogue that the Miller is quite drunk - this IS a big factor in the Miller's high ego and temptation to overstep his social rank to prove a fun point.
QA2: The Miller's tale is a comic variation of the Knight's tale because it still involves a pretty dame and a man who falls in love with her. It's full of the twists and turns that the Knight's tale is, as the Miller is basing it entirely off of his tale, but it contains a bit more emphasize on the plot!