Geoffrey Chaucer by John Norton-Smith;

Author:John Norton-Smith;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 1995-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Most critics have tried to see the Miller’s Tale as an intentional burlesque or parody of the Knight’s Tale, imagining that it is the Miller’s professed object to ‘quit’ the Knight by telling ‘a noble storye for the nones’. This view, alas, fails to read further in the prologue. To quit the Knight is, indeed, his initial ‘for-dronken’ intention, but it is not his last. The Miller has elbowed his way past the Monk (whose turn is properly next) and who has been asked to say ‘sumwhat to quyte with the Knight’s tale’. The Miller picks up the other man’s challenge. The Host, opposing this most impolite intrusion, then reminds Robin that ‘som bettre man’ has the right to speak. After threatening to leave the fellowship, the Miller gets his own way and announces his subject:

76 The day is specified thrice (3516, 3633, 3659).

77 Cf. B. J. Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences and Proverbial phrases, Oxford (1968), N479. The collection is huge and widespread. The formulation is also the subject of three ME poems, cf. Index, items 356, 2341, 2376.

78 Nicholas and Alisoun’s amour begins on the first Saturday when the carpenter had gone to Osney (3274); Nicholas’s ‘game’ begins the next Saturday (3399–400); the fatal night is next Monday (3659, 3665). The duration of the passion and courtship is in keeping with the Miller’s philosophical calendar and Reason’s observations on erotic love in the Roman 3283ff.

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