Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale (5 of 5)
Publication Date: July 17, 2010
Chapter: English Literature During The Middle Ages
I'll admit, this hasn't been the classiest week in Lit Brick history. But you know what? It's not my fault. It's Chaucer's fault. If someone published something like "The Miller's Tale" today, even in context with the rest of the Canterbury Tales, it'd be dismissed as garbage. It's ridiculously filthy and makes almost no sense. That said, I adore it for those very reasons. Seriously, this story is filled with words you still can't say on network television, yet it was published over six hundred years ago. Ah, the things our society chooses to care about.
Anyway, the rest of the story: after kissing Alison's ass, Absalom is out for revenge, so he visits a smithy and borrows a hot iron. He promptly returns to the house, where Nick is taking a leak. Deciding that it'd be even more hilarious if he could get Absalom to kiss his ass, Nick spreads 'em out the window. Sadly, instead of a kiss, he gets a hot iron in the butt. This shock apparently triggers a fart so mighty that it sounds like thunder. Talk about your killer gas. The foul stench knocks Absalom out, and all this ruckus finally wakes up the Carpenter, still hiding in the trees.
The Carpenter, assuming that the thunder-clap of Nick's ass was the sound of the Almighty raining down doom, cuts his tub free from the tree... and promptly plunges several feet to the ground, knocking his lights out. Shortly thereafter, the townsfolk show up and decide that the Carpenter is clearly mad (and honestly, that might be the first sane decision anyone has made this entire story). Thus, with her husband committed, her stalker poisoned, and her lover screaming bloody murder about his burning bum, Alison is - to translate Chaucer into Modern English - f**ked.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most revered works of literature in the English language. There are some days I love humanity.
Tomorrow, there'll be our first donation-based bonus strip, taking us far into the future, into a time known only as "the 20th century." Oooh, scary! See ya then.
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer • Year: c. 1386 • Info: Librarius
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Lit Brick is a comic started by Jodie Troutman in an effort to read the entire Norton Anthology of English Literature. Having eventually succeeded in that goal, it now features comics about all manner of random literature. For more of Jodie's work, visit longtalljodie.com!
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