Page 89 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes

How do all the pilgrims react to “The Knight’s Tale”? Which group especially thinks
it is worth remembering?

It’s also instructive to note the pleasure of the trick in the Miller’s Tale, and the fabliau trick rules it
demonstrates. The plot within the tale is hugely clever and elaborate, studded with religious imagery:
indeed, when John the Carpenter is mentioned as regularly leaving the house, you wonder why the
two didn’t just sleep together when he was out? The answer can only be because of the sheer pleasure
in executing such a complex structure. The tale moves extremely quickly from plot point to plot
point, and everyone (except - and this is significant-Alison) is outsmarted. Even ingenious Nicholas
ends up wounded on the buttock. In fabliau, you are only as good as your last trick.
Language is also undergoing a fall from grace in the Miller’s Tale. Summarize the tale and note how
little of its action depends on words or dialogue: unlike the long, protracted speeches of the Knight’s
Tale, the drunken Miller deals in bodily noises. The mechanics of the tale itself twist on a series of
non-verbal sounds, bodily noises and one-word exclamations: Absolon’s twice knocking at the
window, Alison’s cry of “Tehee!” as she closes the window the first time, and Nicholas’ final,
cumulative cry of “Water!”. “Withouten wordes mo” is a key phrase in the Canterbury Tales-marking
moments at which action is more important than words. The courtly language of the Knight becomes
furtive, silent stealing to bed without words in the Miller’s Tale.
The degradation–or the problematization–of the whole question of language is present throughout
the tales, and draws our attention to the warning the narrator gives us before the Tale itself, that he
is only “rehearsing” or repeating the words of the Miller. The narrator retells us the words of the
Miller, who, telling his tale, repeats the “Tehee!” and “Water!” of Alison and Nicholas. What use–
what poetry–what value have these second or third hand words? What do they signify? And most
importantly, how far should we read them as belonging to the Miller, to the narrator, or to Chaucer
himself?

9.4 Summary
• The General Prologue was probably written early in the composition of the Canterbury Tales,
and offers an interesting comparison point to many of the individual tales itself.
• It is very likely that the Knight’s Tale was written before the Canterbury Tales as a whole
project was planned.
• The Tale is undoubtedly a romance as Chaucer presents it, supposedly a true history of many
hundreds of years ago told by an authoritative, high-status figure.
• The Knight’s Tale adheres to traditional values of chivalric, knightly honor in which there are
strict codes of behavior which one must follow.

9.5 Keywords

Crusade : Any of a series of medieval military expenditions made by European to recover the
Holy land of Muslims.
Cuckold : The husband of an adulteress regarded as an object of derision.
Piteous : Deserving.
Wooing : Try to gain the love of a woman.

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