The miller's tale
by Geoffrey Chaucer · first published 1725
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Chaucer is a really interesting author. I studied 'The Miller's Tale' in A-level English (aged 17 / 18), and loved the bawdy X-rated story that was smuggled in via weird medieval English. For a different perspective on another of Chaucer's characters, I also recommend…
on “Chaucer’s Leading Lady” ↗…somehow uniquely lascivious, I know they have not read any popular late-medieval or Renaissance literature. Anyone who has read Boccaccio's Decameron or even parts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, such as the Miller's Tale, is purged of any imagined celibate medieval period. Sex is not new, which means humans have been doing it (!), thinking about it, and talking/writing about it for a long time.
on “The salacious Middle Ages” ↗The obligatory History of the English language episode "In this episode, we explore the history of swearing and obscenities, and we examine Chaucer’s use of bawdy language in the Miller’s Tale" https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2019/09/25/episode-129-c...
on “Is “Ass” the Most Complicated Word in English?” ↗In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales there is a smith in the Miller's Tale, who worked on farming equipment: plow harness, shares, and coulters. (Unless my Middle English is more forgotten than I thought.)
on “Common Jobs in a Medieval City” ↗> In "The Miller's Tale", Geoffrey Chaucer writes "And prively he caughte hire by the queynte" (and intimately he caught her by her crotch),[14] and the comedy Philotus (1603) mentions "put doun thy hand and graip hir cunt."…
on “The Joy of Numbered Streets” ↗