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Courtly love in the Miller and thé merchant's tales
Chaucer's depiction of women
A knights tale essay
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Chaucer's Parody To Courtly Love
After the Knight tells his story, the Miller insists very rudely to
tell his tale. Chaucer uses the aspect of courtly love which is found
in the Knights tale and makes a parody of it; He uses the Miller?s
character to mock the Knights idea of courtly love.
Miller describes the heroine of his story Alison, as a wife of an
older man and also an infidel. She?s compared to a ?wezele? sly and
cunning. The description of Alison clearly indicates that she is very
different from an innocent girl from courtly love stories instead
she?s well aware of her husbands jealousy and wears elaborate cloths
to show off her beauty.
?Of col-blak silk, withinne and eek withoute?
Alison shows off that she?s rich by wearing the most expensive fabric
of silk at the time, again this adds to the opposite side of courtly
love romances in which the girl would not show off but in fact stay
unaware of such matters as the character of Emily in the Knights tale.
Miller then uses two male Characters who show great admiration for
Alison but unlike the love ...
seriously as we can see that he is not meant to be a character that we
Forbes, Shannon. "'To Alisoun Now Wol I Tellen Al My Love-Longing': Chaucer's Treatment of the Courtly Love Discourse in the Miller's Tale." Women's Studies 36.1 (2007): 1-14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 May 2013
Some say women can get the worst out of a man, but in The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1485, proves it. The tales were originally written as a collection of twenty four tales, but has been narrowed down to three short tales for high school readers. The three tales consist of “The Miller”, “The Knight”, and “The Wife of Bath” along with their respective prologues. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows the weak but strong role of women throughout the “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to contrast different human characteristics and stereotypes on the spectrum of people.
Alison in the Miller's Tale and May of the Merchant's Tale are similar in several ways. Both are young women who have married men much older than themselves. They both become involved with young, manipulative men. They also conspire to and do cuckold their husbands. This is not what marriage is about and it is demonstrated in both tales. What makes the Miller's Tale bawdy comedy and the Merchant's tale bitter satire is in the characterization. In the Miller's tale we are giving stereotyped characters. The principals are cardboard cut-outs sent into farcical motion. The Merchant's Tale gives us much more background and detail of the character's lives. The reader is more involved and can feel their situations. Here we will focus on the two women of each tale and how they demonstrate this difference.
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" should be tragic, because a lot of horrible things happen to the characters. The carpenter's wife is disloyal to him, sleeping with others and making fun of him with Nicholas. Also, he is depicted as a fool. However, readers get a humorous feeling from the story, rather than feeling sorry for the carpenter's unfair life. Chaucer makes the whole story come across as comic rather than tragic. This humor is created by the Miller's narration, the use of irony, the cartoon-like characters, and the twists of plot. These elements combine to produce an emotional distance which enhances the comic effect.
Though Chaucer showed multiple tales of various characters in The Canterbury Tales, the Miller’s and Wife of Bath’s tale surpassed them all on their concept of marriage and love. Both allow the reader to understand where they are coming from and their perception. While one does not seem to believe too much in love, the other does. However, both clearly believe that women control the game of love in their own respective ways.
Chaucer chooses to make a comedy of the Wife, putting into question the seriousness of her character. What opinion is the reader to make of a woman who rants about marriage and female domination when she is described as a clown prepared for battle in the General Prologue ? Her bright red stockings, bold scarlet face, shield-like hat and sharp spurs draw the picture of a silly, if not crazy, woman whose manner is larger than life. The Wife's comical 'larger than life' characteristics apply to her feminist beliefs as well. Equal coexistence is not enough; she says men "shall be bothe my dettour and my thral "-something likely unheard of when this piece was written. Much of what makes her comical is the plethora of sexual innuendoes dispersed throughout her dialogue. For instance, when she irrelevantly mentions in her tale the eager friars that have
In both the Miller’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer uses his characters and stories in order to project various stereotypes to the reader. Although varying a tad bit throughout the book, the tone that seems to be drawn from the stories is that women are manipulating, sinful, and power hungry, while men are considered gullible and rash. Its through understand and analyzing these stereotypes that we can fully understand what Chaucer’s stories are trying to convey to us.
Falstaff is often left out of the conversation or treated as an object when people discuss Shakespeare’s “Henriad.” The conversation has grown to include Falstaffian supporters and those who continue to objectify him. On the one hand, critics like Harry Berger, author of “The Prince’s Dog: Falstaff and the Perils of Speech-Prefixity,” argues that Falstaff’s concealed motives are only brought to light through the characters speech. On the other hand, critics like Robert Bell, author of “The Anatomy of Folly in Shakespeare’s “Henriad,” believes Falstaff to be a fool, but he believes him to be one of Shakespeare’s “Greatest Fools.” I find these critics to be in direct conversation with one another. They both attempt to consider Falstaff in the forefront of the text, along with Prince Harry; more specifically, how one interacts with the other through folly and speech. While I agree with some critics notions that Falstaff has flaws, I would argue that he is more than an object; he is pertinent to the success of the prince, and he must be considered as the subject; Falstaff is the catalyst through whom Prince Harry enjoys his indiscretions, sins, and follies without reprimand or any acceptance of responsibility. Falstaff and Prince Harry share the same mind, but this is only apparent through the folly and parody of Falstaff. Prince Harry is completely oblivious to the fact that he and Falstaff rest on either side of a double-headed coin allowing them to share a psychic link. I will show that Falstaff has knowledge of all of Prince Harry’s actions as well as his own downfall before it occurs through a close analysis of 1 Henry IV, act 1, scene 2.
They say you cannot judge a book by its cover. This old saying means don’t judge somebody by what they look like, but by what is on the inside. Well in the case of the Summoner from the Canterbury Tales that old saying is not true. The Summoner was just as ugly on the inside as he was on the outside. He was described in the book as being the best noble varlet in all the land (Chaucer 667-668). This line meant he was one of the best con artist in all the land. The Summoner was definitely a person who people wanted to avoid.
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
Love is an essential human desire. Once it is caught, dramatic, unexpected changes in ones life occur. Protecting the people one loves is a natural instinct that cannot be controlled. William Shakespeare demonstrates this in Twelfth Night through the relationship between Antonio and Sebastian. Furthermore, Viola continues to ensure the happiness of Orsino is met even if that means sacrificing the happiness of herself. Also, love is evident when one pays attention to, and dedicates himself to the small details in other peoples lives. William Shakespeare demonstrates in Twelfth Night the nature of true love through loyal friendship, bold romance and secretive love.
Chaucer was born in 1343 in London, although the exact date and location of his birth are not known. His father and grandfather were both London vintners and before that, for several generations, the family were merchants in Ipswich. His name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning shoemaker. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve year old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure, upper middle-class, if not in the elite. John married Agnes Copton, who in 1349 inherited property including 24 shops in London from her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described as the "moneyer" at the Tower of London.
Two of the greatest masters of British literature, Shakespeare and Chaucer, tended to look to the classics when searching for inspiration. A lesser-known example of this lies in an ancient tale from Greece about two star-crossed lovers. There are many variations on the names of these lovers, but for the purpose of solidarity, they shall henceforth be referred to as “Troilus and Criseyde” for Chaucer and “Troilus and Cressida” for Shakespeare. Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” offers up a classic tale of love that is doomed, whereas Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida” is not only tragic but also biting in its judgment and representation of characters. This difference may be due to the differences in time periods for the two authors, or their own personal dispositions, but there can be no denying the many deviations from Chaucer’s work that Shakespeare employs. Shakespeare’s work, by making the characters and situations more relatable, builds upon Chaucer’s original work, rather than improving it or shattering it.