“The Miller’s Tale”

Week 4 Post

Post 4: Replying to a classmate’s post, find at least one other example of a poetry term that WAS NOT discussed by your classmate in some other part of the same text (it does NOT have to be in the same 10 lines) and discuss the significance of the surrounding 5 lines that your classmate chose. Be sure to quote, cite, and reference from the text(s) using appropriate APA format. Your post must be at least 150 words.

Name of Classmate to reply for week 4 is Jaclyn O’Brien

“The Miller’s Tale”
In the “Ode” of “The Miller’s Tale”, I chose to discuss lines 3583-3588 first, which consists of six lines. I will start by calling this block of lines in poetry a “stanza”. A stanza can have any number of lines, but this particular block has six lines so I would call it a “sestet stanza”. I would also call these lines an “allusion” because it is a reference to an event and people that the reader are expected to know. Line 3585 states, “That we ben entred into shippes bord,” translation, on which we are entered onto shipboard. (Chaucer, 2008). The event I am assuming would be slaves being forced onto a ship and the slaves are the people. The first two lines form a “couplet” and a “perfect rhyme”, while the last four lines are two “couplets” that are both “slant rhymes”.
For lines 3589-3592, these four lines consist of two “couplets” that are both “perfect rhymes”. The four lines I am referring to are in a “stanza” that consists of twelve lines altogether. Also, the first line, 3589 is a “metaphor” and states, “Thy wyf and thou moote hange fer atwynne,” translation, “Thy wife and thou must hang far apart.” (Chaucer, 2008). These four lines also contain “symbolic imagery” because the wife and husband hanging far apart, or staying away from each other, represents having “no sin.” There is a deeper meaning there.
Chaucer, G. (2008, April 22). The miller’s prologue and tale: An interlinear translation. Retrieved from http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/milt-par.htm
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