Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

116
Geoffrey Chaucer
is indeed a “fool”, as the Host says, precisely because his “wit” (or
reason) truly has been “overcome” (l. 27) not only by the effects of his
drinking but also (and more significantly) by his essential egotism.
The Miller violates a basic taboo against engaging in unreasonable
and belligerent social behavior, especially when dealing publicly with
other people, and particularly when dealing with social superiors (such
as the Knight and the Monk). His basic willingness to break taboos,
however, promises to be all the more shocking when he begins his
drunken tale by announcing that he will “telle a legende and a lif /
Bothe of a carpenter and of his wif ” (ll. 33–34). This announcement
would have made many of the other pilgrims nervous, since the words
“legende” and “lif ” (i.e., “life”) were terms commonly associated with
stories of saints, and the most famous saintly carpenter was Joseph,
whose wife was the Blessed Virgin Mary [B&G 533, see also 558,
622, 624, 639, and 653; in addition, see V123]. The drunken Miller,
then (partly, perhaps, as a way of getting in a dig at the Monk [V123])
seems about to launch into a probably highly profane tale about the
Holy Family—a tale that would almost inevitably violate numerous
Christian taboos. Fortunately, however, it eventually turns out that the
carpenter and wife whom the Miller has in mind are residents not of
the Holy Land, but of nearby Oxford.
The carpenter in question is a rich (some would even say avaricious
[V30; V131]) old man named John, who has violated a standard
social taboo of the time [V139] by marrying a much-younger and
highly attractive wife. Living as a boarder in John’s home is a young,
handsome, and spunky clerk named Nicholas—a student at Oxford
University who seems, however, to be transgressing many of the ideals
expected of students at that time [V136; B&G 138]. Technically
Nicholas is supposed to be preparing for service to the church, but
most of his interests seem to involve the pursuit of selfish and sensual
pleasures. He also shows a superstitious interest is astrology—an
interest that was often condemned by medieval theologians [B&G
491; V132]. In numerous ways, in fact, Chaucer’s Nicholas is the
exact opposite of his namesake, holy St. Nicholas, although there are
also many points of ironic contact between the career of Chaucer’s
Nicholas and the life of the Christian saint [B&G 540, 562, 570, 579;
V32, V134, V150]. The fact that Nicholas spends much of his time
alone in his room singing Christian hymns, and particularly the fact
that one of those hymns is titled Angelus ad Virginem (or “The Angel