The Miller's Tale and Decameron 3.4

by FREDERICK M. BIGGS, University of Connecticut


Whether a source or an analogue, Decameron 3.4 has much to tell us about how Chaucer constructed the Miller's tale, and yet establishing which it is may help us to perceive more clearly what he hoped to accomplish with the second story of the Canterbury Tales. Both sources and analogues can sharpen our understanding of a work, sources by revealing what an author has chosen to retain and omit, and analogues by indicating how others have handled similar material, although sources almost always make these points more forcefully and, of course, clarifying source relationships is useful in itself since this information can contribute to other literary-historical discussions. Within studies of the Canterbury Tales, however, the distinction between sources and analogues has become blurred, with analogues often considered second-best sources. This blurring is due mainly to Chaucer's way of composing, which usually entails working from narrative sources that can be identified by verbal correspondences, close similarities in plot, and/or occasional explicit comments by the author himself. Writing in the original Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where neither source nor analogue is defined, W. F. Bryan comments: "the purpose is to present in so far as possible the sources of the Canterbury Tales as Chaucer knew these sources or, where the direct sources are not now known, to present the closest analogues in the form in which Chaucer presumably may have been acquainted with them." Similarly, Peter G. Beidler's "new terminology" defines a "hard analogue" as "a literary work that is old enough in its extant form that Chaucer could have known it and that bears striking resemblances, usually more narrative than verbal, to a Chaucerian work," and a "soft analogue" as "a literary work that, because of its late date or its remoteness from its Chaucerian counterpart, Chaucer almost certainly did not know, but that may provide clues to another work that Chaucer may have known." The assumption here is that Chaucer always worked from close literary models, and if these are not to be found, then more distant stories, analogues, may allow us to reconstruct the materials that he must have had at his disposal. What can be overlooked is Chaucer's ability to create.