![]() ![]() ![]() The Miller’s tale, like the later Merchant’s tale featuring the ageing husband January and his young wife (who also, like Alison, cheats on her husband), shines a light on a time when men with financial means could marry women for their beauty, while the women had to marry older men for their money. The story is also resolutely set in the present day (or more or less), rather than thousands of years before. In ‘The Miller’s Tale’, the middle-class carpenter (he has a trade and obviously quite a big house, and is wealthy enough to be able to attract a beautiful and much younger wife), the middle-class student Nicholas, and the middle-class clerk Absolon, all inhabit a social milieu one rung down from the world of the Knight’s tale. What’s more, even comedy can tell us a considerable amount about the social world its characters inhabit. ![]() ![]() The Miller is making a statement about the previous tale: the Knight’s tale, set in ancient Thebes, and boasting a cast of kings and knights and an emphasis on lofty and noble chivalric ideals, is far removed from the Miller’s world of ordinary people, with their sex lives, trades, and – yes indeed – bodily functions (Nicholas’ fart is as great as if it had been a thunderbolt because it cuts through the perceived pomposity of the Knight’s tale). But even if we grant that ‘The Miller’s Tale’ is predominantly ‘just a bit of fun’, this downplays the role that the Miller’s story plays in the context of the storytelling game that is The Canterbury Tales. ![]()
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