Discuss Chaucers comic method in the Millers Prologue and Tale Essay

Discuss Chaucer's comic method in the Miller's Prologue and Tale. Combine your personal response with reference to other critical opinion at relevent points in your argument. The Miller's Tale is undoubtedly Chaucer's most crude and vulgar work, but how far did Chaucer intend for there to be a moral to his story? Are we supposed to sympathise with the jealous but 'sely' carpenter when the wife whom 'he lovede moore than his lyf' is unfaithful to him? Should we take pity on Absolon when his 'love-longynge' leads him to the riotous 'misplaced kiss'? We are warned not to 'maken ernest of game' in the Miller's Prologue, and we are also forewarned that the Miller's language and the content of the story may be offensive due to the ' ale of Southwerk'. By this point, it is clear that this is nothing but an amusing story, told purely for pleasure by a drunken and high-spirited miller. Elizabeth G. Melillo agrees in her essay that 'it seems a shame to do anything with the Miller's Tale except laugh heartily! To insert too much intellectual analysis may rob this, the best of 'dirty' stories of its charm.' Chaucer begins by preparing us for the trouble that is to come, by alerting us to the fact that the carpenter has married a woman much younger than him, and that 'his wit was rude' - he is an uneducated and gullible man, with a beautiful young wife. Dissatisfied with presenting us with the bare fact, Chaucer dedicates 40 lines to an elaborate description of Alisoun, in order to emphasise just how attractive she is. As Mc Daniel says, 'She is described in terms of a wily weasel, a vixen, a young calf; animalistic terms that emphasize her youthful sensuality'. By informing us of her 'likerous ye', Chaucer establ... ...ue not to 'maken ernest of game', and not to feel too sorry for the carpenter. The tale ends with the conclusion that 'swyvved was this carpenteris wyf, for al his kepyng and his jalousye'. Chaucer does not want us to take any moral from the tale, but it is packed full of them. It can be seen as a sort of sermon on the sins of pride and jealousy, hidden in the format of a 'naughty story'. According to McDaniel, 'the Miller tells this crude but hilarious story to remind the Host and all the other pilgrims that social pretense is dangerous'. Even though it may be difficult not to pity the carpenter at the end when he is hurt, cuckolded, and taunted, we must refrain from doing it. John Lippitt said that 'the tragic and the comic are not polar opposites, or mutually exclusive, but subtly and sometimes almost paradoxically inter-linked modes of experience'. Discuss Chaucer's comic method in the Miller's Prologue and Tale Essay Discuss Chaucer's comic method in the Miller's Prologue and Tale. Combine your personal response with reference to other critical opinion at relevent points in your argument. The Miller's Tale is undoubtedly Chaucer's most crude and vulgar work, but how far did Chaucer intend for there to be a moral to his story? Are we supposed to sympathise with the jealous but 'sely' carpenter when the wife whom 'he lovede moore than his lyf' is unfaithful to him? Should we take pity on Absolon when his 'love-longynge' leads him to the riotous 'misplaced kiss'? We are warned not to 'maken ernest of game' in the Miller's Prologue, and we are also forewarned that the Miller's language and the content of the story may be offensive due to the ' ale of Southwerk'. By this point, it is clear that this is nothing but an amusing story, told purely for pleasure by a drunken and high-spirited miller. Elizabeth G. Melillo agrees in her essay that 'it seems a shame to do anything with the Miller's Tale except laugh heartily! To insert too much intellectual analysis may rob this, the best of 'dirty' stories of its charm.' Chaucer begins by preparing us for the trouble that is to come, by alerting us to the fact that the carpenter has married a woman much younger than him, and that 'his wit was rude' - he is an uneducated and gullible man, with a beautiful young wife. Dissatisfied with presenting us with the bare fact, Chaucer dedicates 40 lines to an elaborate description of Alisoun, in order to emphasise just how attractive she is. As Mc Daniel says, 'She is described in terms of a wily weasel, a vixen, a young calf; animalistic terms that emphasize her youthful sensuality'. By informing us of her 'likerous ye', Chaucer establ... ...ue not to 'maken ernest of game', and not to feel too sorry for the carpenter. The tale ends with the conclusion that 'swyvved was this carpenteris wyf, for al his kepyng and his jalousye'. Chaucer does not want us to take any moral from the tale, but it is packed full of them. It can be seen as a sort of sermon on the sins of pride and jealousy, hidden in the format of a 'naughty story'. According to McDaniel, 'the Miller tells this crude but hilarious story to remind the Host and all the other pilgrims that social pretense is dangerous'. Even though it may be difficult not to pity the carpenter at the end when he is hurt, cuckolded, and taunted, we must refrain from doing it. John Lippitt said that 'the tragic and the comic are not polar opposites, or mutually exclusive, but subtly and sometimes almost paradoxically inter-linked modes of experience'.