"The beste game of Alle" : elements of the fabliau in Chaucer's Knight's tale.

Abstract

Chaucer's Knight's Tale, the first of the Canterbury Tales, has long been considered to be a courtly romance by a consensus of critics and readers. The tale, however, evades such categorization and possesses elements that are often associated with the fabliau, a genre that emerged in France during the mid-twelfth century. Fabliaux are often comic in nature, presenting lower-to-middle-class characters involved in sexual love triangles, heated rivalries, and ribald mishaps that often celebrate the ingenuity of the individual. Upon first consideration, the fabliau appears to have very little in common with the romance, a genre that features tales that are often devoted to antiquity, the concept of courtly love, and the sacred group identity of knights and nobility. In actuality,the writers of fabliau gained much of their inspiration from romantic literature and counted the aristocracy as members of their audiences. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the relationship of the Miller's Tale to the Knight's Tale is a perfect example of a fabliau that receives its structure and inspiration from a romance.