Mayrhofer, Sonja. “'This Sely Jalous Housbonde to Bigyle’: Reading and Performance in Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale.’” Philological Quarterly, vol. 97, no. 4, 2018, pp. 515–529. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2019582777.
Using Claire Sponsler’s research and book The Queen’s Dumbshows: John Lydgate and the Making of Early Theater regarding medieval literature as oral performance as a springboard, Sonja Mayrhofer claims that the Nicholas from “The Miller’s Tale” utilizes his knowledge in front of an ignorant audience to set the stage for his gain (516-17). She first establishes Chaucer’s awareness of education/literacy being (ab)used for profit in the oral tradition in the way he explicitly characterizes Nicholas’ as “sleigh and ful privee” (MilT 3201) and implicitly characterizes him through Nicholas’s performances in front of various characters. One scene that Mayrhofer analyzes as support for her argument is when Nicholas speaks eloquently as he woos Alisoun with romance and yet acts quickly and rudely, grabbing her by the “queynte.” He expeditiously atones for his actions and wins her love through words he “spak so faire” (MilT 3289), using rhetoric to win Alisoun’s favor when his actions did not. Mayrhofer also dissects the scene between John and Nicholas as further evidence of her claim, in which John is invited to partake in the staged intellectual space and even contributes to the performance (both physically, surrounded by astrolabes and books in Nicholas’s room, and figuratively, in the sense that Nicholas holds space for John to partake in schooled thoughts that invites comradery). These events that are staged by Nicholas for his benefit are believed by his uneducated audience work in his favor, causing Mayrhofer to glean that Chaucer’s knowledge of language in both literacy and performance can be exploited.--Hannah Nagy
