Imagery is used for many purposes, including:
Use of vivid and descriptive (figurative) language.
- To establish the nature of a character
- To contrast/relate various characters
- For comic effect
- To foreshadow events
How was Alison being represented through means of imagery?
Like a weasel, swallow, kid, calf, mouse, bird, colt.
How was Absolon being represented through means of imagery?
Like a goose, cat, nightingale and an ape.
How was John being represented through means of imagery?
Like a cat
Why was Nicholas not portrayed through means of any imagery in The Miller’s Tale?
Because he was a scholar.
Great Chain of Being
- God
- Angels
- Man
- Animals
- Plants
- Inanimate objects
What are examples of imagery through music in The Miller’s Tale?
- Nicholas plays the psaltery and sings
- Alison sings
- Absolon plays the fiddle and sings
- John does not play any music
What are examples of ‘foreshadowing’ imagery in The Miller’s Tale?
- Absolon’s squeamishness of farts
- Nicholas’s forecasting the weather (floods)
- John keeps Alison in a cage
Genre of Parody in The Miller’s Tale:
- Courtly Love
- Biblical material
Parody
Parody imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features.
Courtly Love
A highly conventionalised code of conduct for noble lovers.
Some conventions of courtly love:
- Knight declares his ‘secret love’
- Lady rejects his love
- Knight falls I’ll ‘malady of love’
How does the Bible come forth in The Miller’s tale by means of ‘Parody’?
- Noah’s flood
- Alison threatens to cast a stone
- Nicholas sings Angelus ad Virginem
Genre: Fabliau, where did it come from and general characteristics?
Flourished in France 12th and 14th century. There were few fabliaux before Chaucer.
1. Brief comic tale in verse
2. Setting: Time is present, settings are real and places familiar
3. Subject matter: everyday life, usually scurrilous, often scatological and obscene.
4. Plot: tricks intended to deceive
5. Fabliau justice
What are the characteristics of The Miller’s Tale as a fabliau?
Setting: time is present, settings real, places familiar
Characters: ordinary sorts
Subject matter: everyday life, usually scurrilous, often scatological and obscene.
Plot: tricks intended to deceive
What does fabliau justice in The Miller’s Tale mean?
That unnatural behaviour is punished and natural behaviour is not punished.
Why is Alison like a swallow? Why is Absolon like a goose?
Because a swallow leaves their nest right before it tumbles down.
Geese have the ability to smell intense smells, which foreshadows that Absolon is going to smell something later on.
How does Chaucer use parody?*
The parody imitates the serious manner and characteristics from other literary conventions/literary works to then make fun of them.
Characteristics of a fabilau
- Brief comic tale in verse
- Setting: present time, real life of familiar people
- Characters: ordinary people
- Subject matter: everyday life
- Plot: tricks with intent to deceive someone
- Fabilau justice (poetic justice): everyone gets what they deserve in the end.
What is a fabilau?
A brief comic tale in verse designed to make the reader laugh.
Why does Chaucer use animal imagery?
- Degrading effect on the characters
- Animals are associated with certain behavioural aspects
- Animal images lend auctoritas to the story, makes it make sense
What is a humans complexion influenced by?
- Predominating humours
- The configuration of the heavens at time of birth
- Age
- Season of the year
Complexions
Melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine
Bodily humours
Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm
