Event Title
Fight or Flyte: Class Warfare in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Department
English
Start Date
8-4-2017 11:30 AM
End Date
8-4-2017 12:45 PM
Description
We all know what it is to fight. But to flyte? To flyte, a word from early English, meant to trade insults. A flyting contest was a game of insults. Who can lob the juiciest and the most devastating? In this class, we will read the Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale to watch fighting and flyting at work. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales opens with a long, stately romance, a story of love and chivalric tournaments, told by a knight. The knight’s story is one of decorous fighting, and it resolves with a happy ending. His tale, which is longish, is followed immediately by a brisk, much shorter story told by a miller. The miller’s story is far from decorous. In fact, before launching into his tale, the miller warns the company traveling to Canterbury that he is going to tell something to “quyte” (precursor to our word “requite”) the knight—that is, to pay him back. In this classic case of “flyting,” the Miller’s Tale displays class warfare at its most comic and virtuosic, with storytelling the weapon of choice.
Fight or Flyte: Class Warfare in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
We all know what it is to fight. But to flyte? To flyte, a word from early English, meant to trade insults. A flyting contest was a game of insults. Who can lob the juiciest and the most devastating? In this class, we will read the Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale to watch fighting and flyting at work. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales opens with a long, stately romance, a story of love and chivalric tournaments, told by a knight. The knight’s story is one of decorous fighting, and it resolves with a happy ending. His tale, which is longish, is followed immediately by a brisk, much shorter story told by a miller. The miller’s story is far from decorous. In fact, before launching into his tale, the miller warns the company traveling to Canterbury that he is going to tell something to “quyte” (precursor to our word “requite”) the knight—that is, to pay him back. In this classic case of “flyting,” the Miller’s Tale displays class warfare at its most comic and virtuosic, with storytelling the weapon of choice.