Bottom-Kissing and the Fragility of Status in Chaucer's Miller's Tale

Abstract

Abstract The Miller's Tale attacks authority and permanence of status among a highly class-conscious, small bourgeoisie, using the humiliation through bottom-kissing found in the Old French fabliaux Berengier au Lonc Cul and La Gageure. Chaucer's recollection of these fabliaux may have influenced the postures of Alisoun and Nicholas in the Miller's Tale's window scenes, scenes that ultimately result in a loss of status, certainty, and authority for all of the major characters but Alisoun. Moreover, the ancient motif of apotropaic sexual exhibitionism, where the display of female genitalia, the buttocks, and farting averted demons, is comically used to imagine Absolon as such a demon when he comes wooing at Alisoun's window on the night of her tryst with Nicholas.