Many excellent studies of the fabliau have been published because of the genre's relation to the modern short story, and because of its interesting problem of audience. For a page listing studies of fabiaux in the Goucher College Library, click here.   This would be especially helpful for English 330 students planning papers or tale presentations, or for advanced English 211 student planning midterm or final papers.

Form:  Rhyming couplets, the most common poetic form used for the tales. As in all of Chaucer’s tales in this form, one should pay careful attention to the way he manages to capture the speaker’s voice and dramatic emphases, with a rich range of colloquial (vs. courtly) diction, in a narrative poem hundreds of lines long. Even more interesting is the way in which the Miller’s characters’ voices surface—consider a drunken Miller saying, as Alison does after Absolon’s misdirected kiss, "Teehee" (l. 632). The "voice" effect becomes even more persuasive in the "Wife of Bath’s Prologue," in which some readers are deceived into thinking they are reading the words of a real woman rather than a character Chaucer created from clear literary antecedents.

Characters:

• Nicholas, a clerk or student at Oxford who has spent more on his "sound system" and on parties than he has on his studies—we know the type.
  
• John, the "townie" carpenter, whose trade has made him wealthy enough to own a house big enough that he might rent rooms to the clerk, as well as dressing his young wife in the most outrageously expensive clothing she could desire.
  
• Alison, the carpenter’s "townie" wife, overflowing with energy and taking life’s challenges as comedy whereas John, older by far, is ready to see tragedy.
  
• Absolon, a clerk, possibly also an Oxford graduate, who now serves the priest in the cathedral but who, like Nicholas, is far more interested in dressing well and pursuing the ladies of the town.
  
• Gervase, the smith, a somewhat enigmatic figure who supplies a key tool for Absolon's revenge--he works at his hot forge in the cool of the night and, apart from lovers, is apparently the only one awake until the cries of "Out harrow!" summon the townsfolk in an informal posse.

Summary: [Because the Miller is replying directly to the tale the Knight has just told in all surviving MS and print versions, readers need to have at least some grasp of "Knight's Tale."  The Greek hero, Theseus, has just conquered the Amazons, whose queen he has wed and whose sister (Emily) he takes under his protection.  He is asked for help by widows whose husbands fought against the city of Thebes (i.e., the plot of Sophocles' Seven Against Thebes), and who now lie unburied outside its walls (Sophocles' Antigone).  Theseus conquers the city, kills the tyrant, Kreon, and those searching the fallen rescue two Theban princes, Palamon and Arcite, whom Theseus dooms to prison for the rest of their lives.  Both princes, though sworn to be as brothers to each other, see Emily from their cell window, fall in love with her, and immediately declare each other their mortal enemy.  Arcite is pardoned on condition that he never return to Thebes, and Palamon escapes with friends' help, but both begin fighting over Emily in the forest outside Thebes, where they are discovered by Theseus, his queen, and Emily.  The women beg mercy for the knights, and Theseus arranges a tournament in which they and fifty allies each can fight for Emily's hand.  Arcite's forces win the battle, but Arcite is killed falling from his horse in his moment of triumph.  Theseus marries Emily to the surviving Palamon, and at Arcite's burial, Theseus' father, Egeus, delivers a philosophical speech about the cosmic justice which rules the universe.]    

          Pursued by her tenant, the Oxford student, "hende" Nicholas, Alison puts him off. John already has heard the priest's assistant clerk, Absolon, serenading her outside their bedroom at night, but still suspects nothing. When John has work that takes him out of town, Nicholas supplies his room with food and pretends to have fallen into a trance for several days. He tells John, after the servant has broken the door down, that his clerkly studies have revealed to him that God will send a second Noah’s Flood. (If you haven’t read that part of the Bible recently, you will find an immensely comic reason why Nicholas' lie makes a fool of John.) Under Nicholas' direction, John hangs large, wooden bread-kneading tubs from the ceiling so that they may float free with John, Alison, and Nicholas when the "waters" rise. Exhausted, John falls asleep. Meanwhile, Nicholas and Alison disport themselves until Absolon comes begging a kiss from the window. Alison complies (in the dark?) with her rump, which the fastidious Absolon too late realizes he has kissed. Implausibly returning for a second "kiss," Absolon meets Nicholas' rump with a thrust from a hot plowshare he has borrowed from the smith's forge. Nicholas' cries for "Water!" awaken John in the rafters, who cuts the ropes holding his kneading tub and falls, breaking his arm. The people of Oxford, mainly clerks, arrive in response to the household's cries of "Out harrow!" and the clerks all laugh at John, believing the lovers' tale that he madly imagined the second Flood by himself.

Interpretive issues and general research sources:

        Chaucer may have found the tale's matter in as many as three unrelated sources which be brought together: the "misdirected kiss," the "branding," and the "second Flood." How much of the tale's excellence depends upon the union of the three, or upon our neglect of one plot while another occupies our attention? Nicholas, for instance, behaves as if he thinks he's in the plot of the first tale type, even though Absolon would have to be extremely dense not to have awakened to the deception after hearing "A berde! A berde!" and Alision's "Teehee!" Meanwhile, Absolon has "graduated" to the "branding" tale type and changes the course of Nicholas' plot. Consider the coarseness of the "misdirected kiss" and "branding" plots as a strategy to focus the audience's attention. What does it do to our response to John's fall and injury? Without the "kiss" and Absolon's revenge, how might we have reacted to John's predicament? Note that the Miller explains the town's reaction to the events in terms of social solidarity of one group against an outsider: "For every clerk anonright heeld with oother" (3847, Riverside; 739, Norton). If we laugh with the Miller, with whom are we declaring community?  For some background on Oxford and the town-gown violence that beset medieval university communities, click here.

        Chaucer-the-Pilgrim explicitly warns readers that the Miller will tell a bawdy tale.  However, I wouldn't want you to think that's what all of CT was about.  In fact, tales of moral and ethical instruction far outnumber the bawdy ones, but who remembers them?  Why does the Norton choose this particular tale to illustrate Chaucer's craft?  Consider the possibility that even the bawdy tales can be designed to have a moral effect if read by sophisticated readers who are aware of the frame-narrative's influence on the tale's significance.  As I said in class, watch who laughs and why in its conclusion.  The Norton skips to the Man of Law's Epilogue, bypassing the tale's reception by the Canterbury pilgrims in the Reeve's Prologue, an ambiguous description that contrasts directly with the reception Chaucer-the-Pilgrim says was given the Knight's Tale, which the Miller sought to "quit" or beat.  What do you make of the pilgrims' responses and how might it affect our reading of the Miller's Tale?

        How much does it cost to get drunk in 1385-1400?  This hyperlink will take you to my copy of Kenneth Hodges' aggregation of historians' records of prices paid for various goods and services in England between roughly 1300 and 1450.  The original page was hosted on Paul Halsall's Medieval Sourcebook site at Fordham University, an excellent place to look for context-building evidence about the many cultures that comprised the medieval world.

Good General Sources:

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