No Joke: Transcendent Laughter in the Teseida and the Miller's Tale

Abstract

A LTHOUGH no direct source exists for the story of John, Nicholas, 4. Alisoun, and Absolon, the Miller's Tale represents one of Chau.LL cer's finest examples of literary translation. Recognized as a masterful parody of the Knight's Tale, the story told by the Miller succeeds in quiting that of the Knight by recasting the characters and themes of the Knight's courtly romance into the comedic genre of the fabliau, thus making ernest into game.' Recent scholarship on the relationship between the two tales has focused on issues of class and has celebrated the Miller s Tale as a carnivalesque triumph of the churl over the knight.2 This approach tends to privilege the voice of the Miller rather than the poetic authority of Chaucer as author, so Chaucer's sources for these tales are often overlooked. While many critics have examined Chaucer's use of the Teseida as his source for the Knight's Tale, none has recognized that by having the Miller parody the story of Palamon and Arcite, Chaucer translates not only his own work but also Boccaccio's text into fabliaux.3