Blame it on the Miller

Last week I touched lightly on the concept of translation—how authors translate into text and how readers translate into meaning. This week the topic continues to come up in my ninth-grade classroom. We just completed our initial reading of Romeo and Juliet. Yesterday, we read aloud Edith Hamilton’s retelling of “Pyramus and Thisbe” from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (You see where I am going with this.) We discussed a bit how it functions as a source text for Romeo and Juliet. I’m trying to lay some groundwork for myth and archetype, as we read The Odyssey next quarter. At any rate, a student exploded: “But Ms. Temp, Ms. Temp, why in the world do people go on and on about Shakespeare this and Shakespeare that like he’s really something when he didn’t even make up his own story!?” This, readers, is the kind of moment a secondary ELA teacher lives for. When a student shows this kind of emotion--even if it’s frustration--that’s when you see the growth happen live. The prior assumptions start to get challenged, and the next level thinking begins. Here, a student began the process of questioning her preconceived notions of originality and authenticity. Good stuff. But I digress.

Let’s return to Chaucer and some layers of “telling” in “The Miller’s Prologue and Tale.” We see caveats and justifications galore leading into the Miller’s bawdy tale. The Miller insists on taking his turn at spinning a tale, but first protests:

But first I make a protestacioun

That I am dronke: I knowe it by my soun.

And therefore if that I misspeke or saye,

Wite it the ale of Southwerk, I you praye; (143)

The Miller says ok, I know I’m drunk, so blame the ale, not me; I’m going to tell my tale anyway. Fine, says the reader, this is shaping up to be good story. But then the poet/narrator makes his own excuse—and makes it over the course of twenty lines. First he blames the Miller: “He nolde his words for no man forbere,/But told his cherles tale in his manere.” But this is not enough for our poet, our re-teller of the Miller’s tale. He then weighs the decision of whether to go through with it: “M’athinketh that I shall reherce it here….” And then he warns the reader off. Anyone remember Grover from Sesame Street’s “The Monster at the End of this Book”? Don’t turn the page! Oh no, you turned the page! Our poet/narrator/Chaucer takes the Grover role here:

Turne over the leef, and chese another tale,

For he shal finde ynowe, grete and smale,

Of storial thing that toucheth gentilesse,

And eek moralitee and holiness.

But that’s not all. He also wants a get out of jail free card, too, a don’t blame me. “Blameth noght me,” says the narrator. Blame the Miller, for he’s a “cherl.” And in case you didn’t get the message by now, he adds a final couplet to seek absolution:

Aviseth you, and putte me out of blame:

And eek men shal noght maken ernest of game. (144)

What are we to make of this lengthy “blameth noght me”? As a narrative device, it surely builds anticipation for the tale. And it lends humor and color to the voice. Perhaps more important, it calls attention to the narrative frame, the layers of “telling.” I’m curious to hear your thoughts.