The influence of the Fabliaux on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Abstract

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a work that examines the human condition through various vignettes and points of view, owing to its frame narrative style whereby several stories supplement and underpin a broader story being told. One of the more striking aspects of the collection is its litany of eclectic influences spanning the European continent, such as other frame narrative works like Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Looking holistically at The Canterbury Tales, there is a case to be made that Chaucer’s tales are moralistic, hewing closely to social convention. However, because individuals from all walks of life recount the stories, the qualia of characters encompassing Medieval English society is brought to the limelight, bringing up subject matter deemed problematic. This is perhaps best exemplified through Chaucer’s use of the fabliau—a genre of French origin that foregrounds taboo and controversial themes. Some storytellers in The Canterbury Tales, such as the Miller, represent the pedestrian milieu of English society; their tales lack the virtue and elegance seen in the stories of more distinguished characters, such as the Knight’s, and are instead packed with bawdy, objectionable themes. The fabliau style is invoked in such narratives, as it subsumes the profane content that a swindling and crass character such as the Shipman (to use an example) would recount. Because the fabliau does not have its origins in English literature, Chaucer had to appropriate its tropes to represent and satirise the realities of English society, or else make them more approachable to an English readership. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on the types of fabliau tales that were written and how Chaucer may have manipulated this comic art to breathe life into his characters and enrich his storytelling. In so doing, it will hopefully be made clear that Chaucer wove a tapestry of European influences to expand the creative possibilities of Middle English literature.