AN ATYPICAL 'FABLIAU': GENRE AND EXPRESSION IN THE MILLER'S TALE

Authors

  • Agustín Coletes

Abstract

Like other stories from The Canterbury Tales (TCanT), The Miller's Tale (TMillT) belongs to a specific genre, the 'fabliau'. In other words, it is a narrative poem written for entertainment and characterized by vivid detail and realistic observation. The average modern reader may not find anything else of interest in the tale, but this was not the case for a medieval audience, well versed in a series of conventions inaccesible to the presentday reader. A close study of the tale will reveal, we hope, the distance between stereotype and what is offered by Chaucer or, in other words, between 'genre' and its 'expression'. To this end we shall analyze TMillT within the context of TCanT as a whole, ils 'deep' structure and, finally, the various formal elements which give specific shape to its surface.

Author Biography

Agustín Coletes

Universidad de Murcia

Issue

Section

Artículos