The Canterbury Tales – Between The Purple Passages

Between The Purple Passages

by Ashley Zimunya

“Harlotrye” and “Moralitee”: Sexual (& Other) Violence in Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and ‘The Reeve’s Tale’

Excluding ‘The Knight’s Tale’, the first fragment of The Canterbury Tales is characterised by “harlotrye” referring to crude jesting, not exclusively of a sexual nature as harlotry particularly means now. Chaucer represents harlotry as the antithesis of morality, or “virtuous conduct and thought” as in the ‘Miller’s Prologue‘ Chaucer the… Continue reading

Past Essays, Prose and Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Miller’s Tale, The Reeve’s Tale
Close Reading: Opening of ‘The Miller’s Tale’, Geoffrey Chaucer

This carpenter hadde wedded newe a wyf Which that he loved more than his lyf;Of eightene yeer she was of age.Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage,For she was wilde and yong, and he was oldAnd demed himself ben lyk a cokewold.He knew nat Catoun, for his wit… Continue reading

Past Essays, Prose and Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Miller’s Tale

About

If your hobbies also include reading, thinking excessively about everything you read, and learning other people’s thoughts on the things they’ve read recently or a long time ago, you’re very welcome here!

This is where you can find my observations on various texts (a text here being anything that can be ‘read’ and thus including film, theatre, or Taylor Swift lyrics, for example) and what I think can be found between their “purple passages”.

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