The Canterbury Tales begin with The Knight’s Tale; which chronicles the tragic love triangle of Palamon, Arcite and Emilye. The following tale, which is told by the Miller, is also a love triangle, and is in many ways similar to the Knight’s tale. However, the Miller’s tale sharply contrasts the Knight’s, almost parodying it. The Knight’s tale is a tragic of nobility, heritage and focuses heavily on mythology and astrology, whereas The Miller’s tale is a comedy, focusing on the common-man and his less civilized, and bawdy lifestyle. The two stories mirror one another in many ways, but are presented from completely different sides of the spectrum. When the two tales are looked at closely, it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that they occur back-to-back to one another as there is a stark contrast between the two.
The stories core elements are love, specifically focusing on love at first sight. The Knight tells of Palamon and Arcite, two prisoners of war, who fall for Emelye. Palamon and Arcite, who as cousins were once as close as sworn brothers, turn on one another after merely catching a glimpse of Emelye. Palamon’s love for her is so strong, that he breaks out of captivity in an attempt to find her, putting himself in great danger. Arcite, who was freed from prison by the favor of Perotheus under the condition he never return to Athens, takes his love to extremes as well, disguising himself as Philostrate, and taking up work as a page in Emelye’s chamber, just to be near her. This all culminates in the mass battle in which the winner between Arcite and Palamon will receive Emelye’s hand in marriage. The Knight’s account of love is pure and virtuous, with no hint of anything but true love.
The Miller does not share these quali...
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... they go about it however is entirely different. The Knight’s tale focuses on Athens, a city of nobility and great heritage. The characters are heavily affected by mythological gods such as Venus, Mars, Diana and Saturn. Two competitors take part in an epic and honorable battle of two-hundred men to win the heart of a woman. The story tragically ends with the death of a well respected man. The Miller’s tale, told from the perspective of an everyday man, in the Oxford Village. It features no hero’s or valiant warriors, but a common student and his landlord. There is no battle, but rather slapstick humor involving nothing more than a burned posterior and a broken arm. The story does not end romantically, and instead features a man laughed into humiliation. While the two stories have very similar story arcs, their themes and plots are what make them differ so heavily.
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" should be tragic, because a lot of horrible things happen to the characters. The carpenter's wife is disloyal to him, sleeping with others and making fun of him with Nicholas. Also, he is depicted as a fool. However, readers get a humorous feeling from the story, rather than feeling sorry for the carpenter's unfair life. Chaucer makes the whole story come across as comic rather than tragic. This humor is created by the Miller's narration, the use of irony, the cartoon-like characters, and the twists of plot. These elements combine to produce an emotional distance which enhances the comic effect.
Once you see the Medieval Times Knight battle you will have a whole new appreciation for knights; a castle garden. It all started with the stairs. When it was time for the show to begin my family and I went to the grand staircase. Once we got there two trumpet players dressed in baggy pants and shirts started playing. Their trumpets were unusually long with banners on them. One banner had a lion's head on it and the other had a shield. The trumpet players played the most crisp and majestic sound I have ever heard. The sound rang through the castle and all of the crowds fell silent.
In the Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reeve’s Tale describes how two college boys met the Miller and decide to set him straight. In the prologue of the tale, the Reeve, named Oswald, reflects on the Miller’s tale. Oswald seems to be the only person who is not amused by the Miller’s tale, and therefore, decides to expand on these feelings in his own tale.
By the end of eleventh century, Western Europe had experienced a powerful cultural revival. The flourish of New towns provided a place for exchange of commerce and flow of knowledge and ideas. Universities, which replaced monasteries as centers of learning, poured urbanized knowledge into society. New technological advances and economics transformations provided the means for building magnificent architectures. These developments were representative of the mental and behavioral transformations that the medieval world underwent and the new relationships that were brought about between men, women and society in the twelfth century. As in technology, science, and scholasticism, Literature was also reborn with a new theme.3
The miller’s anger is illustrated to the audience when he is illustrated as a man of large stature, and intimidating. Chaucer continues to vividly describe the miller to the reader by writing that, he wins all the wrestling shows, carries weapons, and uses words to fuel his anger, and takes his anger out on others. All of these traits that the miller has illustrate to the audience that he is an intimidating character that is full of anger and demonstrates it well in the way that Chaucer describes him. The Canterbury Tales are important to study now days, because the audience can learn from the bad traits that that each character has and portrays.
In a relationship, Love is a feeling that humans share with a special person. Some bonds could be mutual, while others are dissociated. During the Medieval period, love affairs were dominated by one gender, men, and the women had little or no control over decisions. Before a gentleman married a lady, the gentleman first boasted about her beauty, championed the cause of the lady, and did whatever the lady requested. The era was influenced by knights, and dictated by honor and chivalry that each knight had to display to their king and queen. As a gentleman, a knight had to be just at all times, especially toward ladies. At this time, there was a king named Arthur. King Arthur had a flourishing kingdom that abruptly ended. Later on, many authors recounted the story of the reign of King Arthur. Sir Thomas Malory published Le Morte d’Arthur, and Geoffrey Chaucer published The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Although both of these books recount the reign of King Arthur, the stories are very diverse and unique in their own way. Both stories demonstrate for a relationship to be successful, both partners must be submissive, must be brave, and must be willing to learn from mistakes.
Arrathoon, Leigh A. "The Miller's Tale," Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh A. Arrathoon, Rochester, Michigan: Solaris Press, Inc. 1986. 241-318
Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.
The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight revolves around the knights and their chivalry as well as their romance through courtly love. The era in which this story takes place is male-dominated, where the men are supposed to be brave and honorable. On the other hand, the knight is also to court a lady and to follow her commands. Sir Gawain comes to conflict when he finds himself needing to balance the two by being honorable to chivalry as well as respectful to courtly love.
Within the larger context, the tales can be divided into groups. These ‘fragments’ are each cohesive, not in the least because of their treatment of a single overarching question or issue, as is examined in detail by structuralist critic Jerome Mandel, in Building the Fragments of the Canterbury Tales. Using Mandel’s premise as a beginning, one can further conjecture a structural similarity between the fragments; for the immediate purposes, a similarity between Fragments I (beginning with the Knight’s Tale) and III (beginning with the Wife’s Tale) is worth noting, in which an opening tale poses a serious question and partially addresses it, and a pair of lighter tales follows, each playing off the other to further examine the question. As the fragments progress, moreover, the questions as they arise encompass the previous question. Thus, the Wife of Bath’s Tale serves an important didactic purpose in encompassing the Knight’s, and heightening the level of the dialogue as Alice, the Wife of Bath, exams the validity of the question the knight poses in its entirety.
Though Chaucer showed multiple tales of various characters in The Canterbury Tales, the Miller’s and Wife of Bath’s tale surpassed them all on their concept of marriage and love. Both allow the reader to understand where they are coming from and their perception. While one does not seem to believe too much in love, the other does. However, both clearly believe that women control the game of love in their own respective ways.
"The Miller's Tale" is characterized as a fabliau because it follows certain requisites. Just like any other true fabliau, "The Miller's Tale" focuses on the vulgar or lower class. The main character, a carpenter, and his new wife are simple individuals and are certainly not well educated. The old man's tenant, a student from Oxford named Nicholas, is well educated but has very little money and therefore his social class is no higher than the carpenter's. Similar to the social status of the characters, their involvement with each other fits the classic fabliau standard. The old carpenter, a gullible man blinded by his love for his young wife, is humiliated and duped by the young student. Nicholas, whose chief talent was "making love in secret," seduced the old man's wife right under his nose. Though the carpenter had been faithful and follows Nicholas' plan only to save his wife, he is later scorned, abandoned, and humiliated by her and the rest of the town. This unjust conclusion follows the fabliau's tendency to scorn conventional morality and favor the most skilled and cunning instead. The wife, who was...
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a piece of work that resembles both a historical and sociological introduction the late middle ages. Chaucer’s ability to interpret basic human nature from different viewpoints is exemplified in the characters he created. I have selected two stories, The Prioress Tale and The Knights Tale, within the Canterbury Tales that manifest the strengths and weaknesses of human character. Than I will compare Chaucer’s pilgrims to figures portrayed by Dante in the Divine Comedy.
The prologues that link the various Canterbury Tales shift effortlessly from ponderous drama to light comedy. The lamentable tale of Griselde gives way to the Host's complaint about his shrewish wife. This prologue further illustrates how each of the characters informs the tale he tells. The travelers largely tell tales that conform to their personal experiences or attitudes, such as the Merchant, whose awful marriage is the occasion for his tale about a difficult wife. In most cases the influence of the narrator on his tale is apparent, but the authorial touch lightly felt. The Merchant's Tale, for example, gains little from the prologue's information that the Merchant is disenchanted with his own marriage. Only a few of these tales exist largely as extensions of the characters who tell them; the Wife of Bath's Tale is the most prominent of these stories.