The second of the CANTERBURY TALES, the Miller’s
Tale is a bawdy FABLIAU put into the mouth of the
drunken Miller, who claims to tell the story to
repay the Knight for his courtly romance. A story
of the rivalry between two clerics lusting after a
carpenter’s wife, the Miller’s Tale’s plot parallels
that of the KNIGHT’S TALE; but as a comic tale of
middle-class characters, the Miller’s fabliau undercuts the chivalric values of the Knight’s courtly ROMANCE. Long considered indecent, the tale is today
considered one of CHAUCER’s greatest achievements and the premier example of its genre.
The tale is perhaps the best-known of all literary fabliaux, combining naturalistic description
with a complex plot involving two widespread
folklore patterns: the “second flood” and the “misdirected kiss” motifs. In the tale a rich old carpenter named John weds a young wife, Alison, whom
he jealously guards. His boarder, the student
Nicholas, propositions Alison, who readily yields
to his advances. Meanwhile the fastidious parish
clerk, Absalon, also woos Alison, but the lady
prefers Nicholas.
Nicholas is able to convince John that he has
foreseen a second great flood, and persuades him
to hang three kneading tubs from his ceiling in
which Alison, John, and Nicholas can sleep the
night of the flood and float safely away in the
morning. They climb into the tubs that evening,
and when John falls asleep, Nicholas and Alison
climb down and frolic in the carpenter’s bed.
Absalon, the parish clerk, interrupts them, begging at the window for a kiss. When he agrees to
leave if she kisses him, Alison puts her backside
out the window. In the dark, Absalon kisses it, and
when he hears derisive laughter as the window
closes, he realizes what he has done. He returns to
the window with a red-hot plowshare borrowed
from a blacksmith, and, seeking revenge, asks for
another kiss. This time Nicholas puts his posterior
out the window, and Absalon brands it with the
plowshare. As Nicholas screams in pain for
“water,” John awakens, believes the flood has
come, and cuts the rope holding his tub. He
crashes to the floor, breaking his arm, and when
the neighbors come to see what the noise is about,
Alison and Nicholas convince them the carpenter
is mad.
The humor of the story lies not only in the
comic situations, but also in Chaucer’s arrangement of the two plots to make them converge in
the unexpected ending. This complexity of plot, as
well as Chaucer’s carefully developed characters,
elevates the Miller’s Tale well above the conventional medieval fabliau.
In addition to Chaucer’s transformation of the
fabliau genre, scholars have been interested in the
Miller’s Tale’s ironic parody of COURTLY LOVE and of
the Knight’s Tale. Other themes of scholarly interest have included the idea of justice in the story, the
various allusions to the MYSTERY PLAYS, and the related problems of class raised in the tale.
Bibliography
Benson, Larry, et al., ed. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd
ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.
Brewer, D. S. “Class Distinction in Chaucer,” Speculum 43 (April 1968): 290–305.
Kolve, V. A. Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The
First Five Canterbury Tales. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984.
Mann, Jill. “Speaking Images in Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s
Tale..’ ” In Speaking Images: Essays in Honor of V. A.
Kolve, edited by R. F. Yeager and Charlotte C.
Morse, 237–254. Asheville, N.C.: Pegasus Press,
2001.
Patterson, Lee. Chaucer and the Subject of History.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.