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Similarities Between The Knight's Tale And The Millers Tale

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Helen Rocha
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By looking at the Knight's and Miller's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's work of fiction Canterbury Tales 1476, one can see the distinctions between love and lust, and the tragic and comic endings desire, temptation, and ones emotional necessities may lead the human mind to. The Knight who portrays humorous aristocracy among pilgrims, introduces a courtly love tale that represents his social class. The Miller on the contrary represents the middle class in Medieval England, and coveys a fabliau tale, completely distinct from the Knight's tale. Both tales introduce the conventions of romance, and upshot of desire. While one tale engages on a spiritual meaningful convention of love, the other engages in sexual drive and the humiliation lechery may bring to ones table for the rest of their living. The Knight commences his tale by introducing a Duke who is known by many, by the name Theseus. He recollects his time as a great conquerer, and how he took Hippolyta to wife, the queen of …show more content…
The Knights Tale is spiritual, expressing true love and the conventions of Medieval Romance. In the Millers Tale, love is purely physical, and replaced by list rather than spirituality, ideals, and romance. There is a distinction between the love triangles presented in both tales. One where Palomon and Arcite demonstrate chivalry to win the love of Emily, and the other where Nicholas and Absolon are fulfilled with desire, and the desperate need to have Alisoun in bed. Chaucer presents both tales to reveal the differences between the Knight and the Miller. The Knight believes in a higher prosperous life where true love triumphs, whereas the Miller who is negative and hopeless believes that men can only feel lust for women, and never know true

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