Chaucer, The Miller's Tale

Question 1

Miller’s Tale: Nature

Answer 1

• Nicholas studies Ptolemy’s Almageste and astrology while at “Oxenford.” Interesting that this information should practically start the Miller’s tale after the Knight’s tale ends with a confirmation of the “cheyne of love.”
• Not for men to pry into God’s secrets, i.e. astrology ~l.3454

Question 2

Miller’s Tale: justice/law

Answer 2

“Quite”: repay, revenge, reward, do one’s duty, conduct oneself: Miller>Knight; Absalon>Alisoun. But consider this in light of “Cheyne of love” above.

Question 3

Miller’s Tale: art, artifice, meta

Answer 3

Absolon in mystery play: “Somtyme, to shewe his lightnesse and maistrye, / He pleyeth Herodes upon a scaffold hye.” Scaffold probably the upper story of a pageant wagon.
o Herod type = blustering tyrant (hence Hamlet’s “out-herods Herod”)
o Absolon in some ways becomes what he acts—impotent, jealous, thin-skinned—even though his purpose was to show “lightnesse [agility] and maistrye [skill].”

Question 4

Miller’s Tale: genre (anecdote)

Answer 4

Fabliau: there’s a part in Alan Bennet’s History Boys where the Richard Griffiths character is like, “the best moment in reading is when you reach your hand out and on the other side of the page there’s a hand that grabs yours.” I felt something like that when Nicholas sticks his ass out of the window. So I’m reading the book like this [display]–in Chaucer’s time it would’ve been a manuscript page–and Nicholas just farts into my face from across the gulf of a thousand years. How long does it take for the light of a star to travel to earth? I don’t know, but it took Nicholas’s fart 1000 years to reach my face.

Question 5

Miller’s Tale: genre (not History Boys), motifs

Answer 5

Three motifs:
1.	Man made to fear a second flood
2.	A misdirected kiss
3.	Branding with a hot iron
All three could have been found by Chaucer in French fabliaux

Question 6

Miller’s Tale: Ideology

Answer 6

Nicholas studies Ptolemy’s Almageste and astrology while at “Oxenford.” Interesting that this information should practically start the Miller’s tale after the Knight’s tale ends with a confirmation of the “cheyne of love.”

Question 7

Miller’s Tale: justice, law, quiting

Answer 7

See ideology. Nicholas studies Ptolemy’s Almageste and astrology while at “Oxenford.” Interesting that this information should practically start the Miller’s tale after the Knight’s tale ends with a confirmation of the “cheyne of love.”