Color symbolism in The Miller's Tale of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales selfishness and the cruelty of people towards each other, contains a wealth of color terms that add and expand the meaning of this rustic tale. The storyteller also, the Miller, is described in detail in Chaucer's "Prologue" with several colors attached to him. The colors Chaucer employed were important not only for vividness of description to help create a mental image for listeners (or readers), but also for clues to the nature of the characters described. Sometimes a single color term has multiple levels of meaning describing an aspect of a human being or a piece of clothing, and these meanings can create multiple readings of increasingly revealing and sometimes contradictory meaning. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Color symbolism was much more important in medieval society than it is today. Colors meant many things, and the different shades and hues chosen for clothing, furniture, and even hair dye (in addition to natural variations of these hues) were all imbued with meaning in a social and religious context:... .color [was] a favorite ploy of Satan and his acolytes, used in their tireless efforts to trip up humanity as it struggled on the rocky path to salvation. The followers of this theory thought color very suspect, doubly corrupted by the fall of man which had made the material world ephemeral and transitory... The Middle Ages, however, had followers of color who affirmed that color was in reality the product of a divine light which gave life to matter. (Pleij 1-2) An interesting note, described by Pleij, is that before the Renaissance, bright, rich colors were considered both formal and acceptable for everyday wear, which is why the Millers could wear "a hood blue and one white. coat" (Chaucer 18) for his traveling costume. Our perception of the Middle Ages, depicted in the film, is that of most ordinary people dressed in dull brown and gray fabrics, interspersed, perhaps, with the richer robes of the clergy and nobility However, color was used in every conceivable way in clothing, even among the poor, and if we could see the dress of the pilgrims described by Chaucer, we would most likely see a riot of color. It was not until much later than Chaucer's time that the colors of blue and black (the colors of the firmament and, therefore, of God) became the colors of "earthly self-denial, of extreme asceticism, of deep sadness and supreme humility” (Pleij 6). Bright colors became traits of the devil, and dark blues and blacks became the colors of the righteous (especially later among Protestants – note the uniform clothing). black costumes of the Dutch merchants of the Renaissance and the black and white costumes of the Puritans). Pilgrims in America.) This preference for blue and black has continued to the present day, in modern evening and formal wear, particularly for men (Ibid). The medieval people described by Chaucer had no such qualms about color. “If any era could be singled out as the most obsessed with color, it would be the Middle Ages.” (Pleij 4) So what do the colors in the description of the Miller, then the colors used by him in his Tale, have?contributed to the meaning of the story? The Miller's hair is "red as the hairs of an old sow's ear." Red was often associated with short temper and sexual incontinence, and red hair and reddish skin were associated with the "other" in medieval art. The devil is represented, in an infernal way, with red hair. (JTS article). Red hair was, in fact, a negative connotation for a whole series of evil characters, including “greedy millers” (Pleij 82). Negative medieval attitudes toward redheads were so severe that all redheads were "considered impostors and cheats." (Ibid) There may also have been a superstition that red hair was the product of conception that occurred during a woman's menstrual period. This sinful act, because the sexual act outside of the specific purpose of procreation was considered sinful, was considered to have scarred the child for life. “Generally speaking, physical characteristics involving the color red are almost never good” (83). Additionally, the Miller's nostrils are "black because broad" (Chaucer 18, "Blake Were and Broad," Benson 32), which may just be a derogatory personal description, but notions of black as a color associated with human beings were complicated in medieval times. Yet superstition persisted against things of the night, and the idea that black was a celestial color had not yet taken hold. In many cases, in medieval verse, "black is the color attributed to the devil and demons" (Heather, II, 215). In two lines so far, Chaucer has been able to create two demonic references to the Miller just within his personal framework. description. The running joke among medieval villagers, no doubt based at least partly on fact, was that millers were thieves, and so drawing a parallel between the miller and the devil was not only apt but funny. His description as strong, pig-like (and therefore greedy and overfed), with hair of porcine texture and devilish color, with a broad nose (a short or broad nose could "betray an amorous nature", Brewer 44, as does the nature of his story) is already so loaded with meaning that the Miller hardly seems to need further explanation. He is greedy; he is probably in love, and perhaps in a way that deviates from accepted mores. He is like the devil, perhaps in the sense of true evil, or, depending on how he interacts with the other pilgrims, only with a sense of malice. He was established as being out of the norm, with his red hair (a possible bias against the native Celts or Danish invaders), and his black nostrils complemented the facial image not only of ugliness, but also of a suggestion. of the breath of the infernal regions. Miller's "golden thombe" (Benson 32) was of course a direct reference to his cheating ways on the scale with his customers' grain and flour. Millers were proverbially considered thieves (Langdon 244) and the reference to “golde” – not only a metal but a color – meant that his thumb was indeed heavy. It is also a suggestion of his inhumanity, for while any part of his body could be other than flesh, he was less than human and was not as worthy of respect or sympathy as a true human being. Gold and red are often mentioned together in medieval verse (Heather, IV, 322) and the parallel with her red hair (which, of course, is actually orange, or red-gold) could be continued here. Or it could be that he is so fond of profit, in the form of grain or flourstolen, or of gold itself, that his thumb has become made of it. The Miller's "white rating and blown cap" (Benson 32) are more problematic. In the Middle Ages, white was almost always associated with purity and holiness, so her white coat belies Miller's nature. The whiteness of the soul after being shriveled (Heather, III, 266) was an important image in medieval poetry, and so it is difficult to say what, if anything, Chaucer was trying to describe by giving the Miller a smock white. Perhaps this was a reference to a real miller he had known who wore such a coat. It was an eminently impractical color (as well as being quite expensive, as bleaching fabrics was a difficult process in medieval times) for travel, as the pilgrim was sure to get dirty and dusty on a unpaved road on horseback. Perhaps, although there is little evidence of this, it was a symbol of his lack of practicality and his desire to show off his ill-gotten gains in dress. The "blow hode" is slightly easier to understand, but remains contradictory. It could be associated with the planet Venus (Heather, IV, 326,) which would again be a reference to Miller's tale of debauchery and his supposed sexual incontinence . However, Chaucer also explains that blue is the "color of amorous constancy" (referring to Canace's blue velvet meow in "The Squire's Tale", Chaucer 500). It's somewhat confusing. Perhaps this is either a validation or rejection of the virtue of Miller's own wife. He said: I have a wife, God knows, as well as you. But not for all the horses in my cart. Would I commit to taking it now? Calling myself a cuckold just because... I'm pretty sure I'm not and never have been. One should not be too curious in life, whether about the secrets of God or his wife (Chaucer 88). So perhaps the blue hood he wears, if it has color symbolism, is a sign of his belief in (or slight neglect of) his wife's fidelity. It could, conversely, be a mockery of his inattention to his own wife's sexual infidelities, and therefore also a substitute for the cuckold's horns. The blue cloth on the Virgin's head was proverbial in statues and paintings of that era (and down to the present day in many depictions of her), so the Miller's blue hood could either be its own homage to the Virgin Mary (which seems unlikely) or perhaps another Chaucer joke about the lack of chastity on the part of the Millers or their wives. This range of attributes and colors serves to enlighten, amuse and even confuse the reader. It would have been much simpler if the Millers were dressed in green (the color of “loving lightness” Chaucer 500). Being dressed as "clad in green...was [a] trait of the devil in medieval tradition." (Howard 62) But Chaucer doesn't make things so simple for us, and instead piles on the allusions and contradictions to make us stop and consider not only Miller's words, but the meaning behind his words (as his own can -be also- (enthusiastic protests of his wife's fidelity.) Without doubt, from these few terms, Chaucer creates in our minds a vivid and quite human image of the storyteller of Miller's Tale The first mention of. 'a color term in the Tale itself refers to the young lover Nicholas's wardrobe or linen press "covered with a faldyng reed" (Benson 68. The Faldyng was a kind of coarse cloth, presumably cheap and easy to obtain even for a poor student like Nicholas. The coarseness of the fabric is perhaps a marker of rudeness, and even deviousness.of Nicholas and his sexual and vengeful escapes. The image is quickly created of a man both concerned with luxury and appearances (red or scarlet was associated with luxury fabric, especially in the early Middle Ages when it was really the only luxury fabric available ) but only capable, either through his own base and garish tastes, or through the constraints of poverty, of making his room look like a cheap brothel. Red was also associated with the color of flame (Heather, IV, 320) which could be a parallel either with the devil (as in Miller's apparition reading, above) or with the flame of desire sexual. But again, there is a contradiction in this color. Red had, for many years, been associated with royalty and honor (Heather, ibid) and "scarlet and purple were particularly coveted, as these expensive red dyes were extracted from picky snails and worms to obtain” (Pleij 6.) was a fashionable color, and the red shade of the covering of Nicolas’s cupboards was perhaps chosen by him to attract young women. Nicholas' character "Deerne love he koude et of solas" (Benson 68, "And making love in secret was his talent" Chaucer 89) certainly supports the idea of a young man who would choose his clothes and furniture d 'apartment based on what he thought would allow him to get the most out of sexually with the young women of his acquaintance. Chaucer was so capable of creating a character's persona in just a few lines that it appears that color was part of his plan to evoke possible attributes of the characters through personal description. Red was “For centuries…considered the exact opposite of white” (Pleij 17) rather than black. If this thought was still dominant in Chaucer's time (and there is no direct evidence from the text, but it is a possibility), then Nicholas's red cloth in his room was like a red flag (or a light red in a prostitute's window, or the red cloth thrown over a lamp in a prostitute's bedroom) announcing her sexual desire and unscrupulous morals. Professor Sherbo supports the idea that the word choices in Chaucer were not about poetic diction, but were simply the words used in everyday prose. . For, as Dr. Johnson said, "...before Dryden's time there existed 'no poetic diction: no system of words both refined from the crudeness of domestic usage and free from the harshness of terms appropriate to particular arts.” One might object to this chronological division, as Shakespeare wrote "incarnadine" for red (Macbeth Act II ii), but from this idea we can suggest that Chaucer's motivation in choosing colors had more to do with symbolism of color as any type of "elegances or flowers of speech." (Sherbo 1) Since: Chaucer's poetry is almost entirely free of poetic diction, which is completely understandable. As early as 1913, Havens wrote "as the subjects of the poems approach those of ordinary conversation, the language and style become conversational, and... 'poetic diction' is employed only in passages which it is desirable to have so different. as possible from prose. (Sherbo 44) If this is true, and the conversational rather than formal tone of Miller's tale (it is called a "cherles tale" Benson 67, a moron being a lower class person) fits this idea, then the selection of color terms was not based on aesthetic, sonic, or musical grounds. The words could have been chosen to fit the meter (and Chaucer's color terms are short and easy to rhyme andinsert in a line - reed). , barred, white, col-blak, blown - as opposed to later poetic Latinisms, incarnadine, striation, achromatic, nigros or cerulean, for example) but were not chosen, at least not primarily, to create an audible effect. it can be argued that the choice of colors was based, on the one hand, on how they fit into the story and, on the other hand, on the symbolism that these colors represented. Continuing the description of the Alison fair, Chaucer uses a further wealth of color terms. Chaucer immediately tells us that his girdle was made of “striped silk” (Chaucer 90). Stripes or multi-colored fabrics, although expensive and flashy (like silk), could also be seen as a sign of one's deviance. “When a painter dressed a character in stockings consisting of one leg red and the other yellow, he was telling the viewer that he was a dubious character” (Pleij 73). Although we are not told the actual colors of the stripes on Alison's belt, it could be that this is Chaucer's first way of visually marking her as garish, showy, perhaps too willing to spend money. her rich old husband's money for nice things, and even owning her future sexual deviance. Women who chose to wear multi-colored clothing were religiously chastised. "The 13th century hellfire preacher, Berthold of Regensburg, railed against women who were carried away by fashionable colors. He noted that they were no longer content with the infinite variety of colors which God had made available to nature - an abundant supply of brown, red, blue, white, green, yellow and black No, the last feminine pride was to combine these colors in polka dots and black. stripes..." (Pleij 75) The idea that it was about female pride, and not only that. personal taste or even sexual advertising, fits Alison's character. She is so proud that she not only thinks she can cheat on her husband (which she and Nicholas easily accomplish), but feels no remorse for her deceptive acts and infidelity, and does nothing to saving her husband from the insults of the townspeople at the end of the tale (Chaucer 105-106). Her striped belt is a sign of her willingness to violate her marriage vows and her pride in cheating on her husband. A damning garment, indeed. “White as morning milk” was Alison's apron, as was her blouse. A white apron gets dirty quickly, so it was probably an expression of Alison's vanity, just as the more expensive white fabric was a marker of her willingness to spend her husband's money. White was considered "the most appropriate color for women" (Pleij 68) because it was the color of heaven and freedom from sin, so perhaps Alison wore these white clothes in order to give herself a false aura of respectability. But the embroidery on the blouse is black (Chaucer 90), showing not only Alison's ability to mix colors (which is frowned upon because contrary to God's nature), but also her desire to tone down the whiteness of his garment with the darkness of the devil. The embroidery too, in silk, was undoubtedly considered a vanity and was unusual enough for Chaucer to comment on it. We can imagine that Alison thought she was either creating a trend or leading it within her village. This too would have been considered immodest and perhaps an indicator of future sin. These magnificent clothes (a striped belt, a white apron, a silk blouse with black embroidery) don't stop there. There are "bands and ribbons" on his "milky mutch" (cap, Chaucer 90) to match this ensemble. Her white hairstyle may have been required, as notedabove, because hairstyle colors other than white were considered the height of vanity and sexual display. But Alison doesn't stop at a white bonnet: she gilds the lily with ribbons and ribbons, as a young woman might choose to do. It is interesting that Chaucer includes this detail. However, it's hard to say whether this was pure fantasy or another indicator of Alison's impudence. The next color term applied to Alison concerns her eyebrows. “And she had plucked her eyebrows into arches,/they were slender and black as sloes.” (Chaucer 90) A sloe, of course, is a small black fruit used to flavor alcohol, and is hardly a classic simile for feminine beauty. Chaucer injects some humor and satire here, as Alison's lower-class beauty would not be classified and cataloged in the same way as the upper-class beauty listed in, say, The Book of the Duchess. "...[Alison's description] is, indeed, partly a rhetorical joke, the aim of which is the absurdity of describing a carpenter's wife, a wanton village girl, as if she were a heroine , a noble, ideal beauty There is probably also an element of social satire here. is not said, although it seems likely we only know that his "complexion had a brighter tint/Than a new florin from the Royal Mint", [Ibid.] Also, "His tint is bright gold like that of n." 'no matter what romantic lady, but she is compared to a newly minted "noble" gold, a gold coin worth 6s 8d {What is the price of Alison?}" Brewer 42) were. not considered strange. In fact, it was considered the ideal "In the Middle Ages, blondes were expected to have brown eyes and black eyebrows, or at the very least dark brown. This combination, so strange to us today, paved the way for hair dyeing methods that allowed all those dark hairs to dye their hair. brown-eyed to achieve the ideal with relative ease. (Pleij 50) The reference to the Royal Mint guilder could suggest that Alison dyed her naturally dark hair a blonder color. This was not an uncommon practice. It is possible that the color of her hair was “bought” by gold. The other possibility of this reference too, certainly, is that his love or virtue was cheap and easily purchased with gold or other favors (good associations attached to this color) even in the case of natural blonds a several possible origins. The one that seems to have the most antiquity and credibility is the prejudice of Antiquity against invaders from the North, who naturally had bluer eyes than the majority of Mediterranean peoples. (Ibid) Although we do not know the color of Alison's eyes, it seems likely that her eyes were as dark as her eyebrows, and Alison may have been cited as an example of the medieval ideal of beauty (although be low class and full of humor). .) The next possible color term is "latoun" (Benson 69), or the brass-like alloy on her leather purse, which was "adorned with silk tassels and silver droplets" (Chaucer 90 ). Those metallic colors adorning the purse attached to her striped belt added another element to her already garish ensemble and were probably expensive. Silver-white, although this color is more linked to heraldry (silver) than the metallic colors described by Chaucer, is confusingly associated with early childhood (up to twelve years) when children were considered the more innocent andmore angelic. (Pleij 15) It seems unlikely that this association applies to Alison, a sexually mature and wanton girl of eighteen, so it seems much more plausible that Chaucer, here, with the mention in six lines of three metallic colors (brass, silver, and gold) with the addition of "pearl" to simply be a catalog of the richness with which this young woman is dressed. The next wave of color terms comes when Alison goes to church and sees Absalom, in love. Significantly, Alison "...seduced/The color of her face to make her mark:" (Chaucer 92). Either Alison pinched her face to redden her cheeks and make her more attractive (red faces were often given to fools in Terence's comedies, Pleij 50, and "blushing red faces... were considered a sign of madness, aggressiveness, deviousness", and betrayal. 82) In this small detail, the whole story is revealed. Alison is indeed sexually aggressive, devious in the extreme, and quite willing to betray not only sexually but socially her elderly husband. , while attractive, were not something one could find on a trustworthy woman. Moving on to the description of the Parish Clerk Absalon, another explosion of color attributes is given to him: His hair was all in golden curls and shone: Just like a fan he strutted outward, beginning at the left and right of an accomplished separation, Ruddy's face, his eyes gray as a goose, his shoes cut into tracery, as in the custom of old St. Paul, the pipe on his diet was scarlet through, and. all his clothes were neat and proper. In a light blue jacket, ruffled at the waist and labeled with laces as well. He went and wore a surplice just as gay and white as any flower on the jet. Six color terms are applied to it: golden, reddish, gray, scarlet, light blue and white (in Middle English: gold, reed, graye, rede, lightwaget and whit, Benson 69-70) in just eleven lines. It would be difficult to draw one or even two conclusions from this array of shades, assuming that the colors are meant to have a symbolic meaning other than description. "There is no unambiguous system of medieval color symbolism, unless the term is used to denote the desperate and contradictory attempts of medieval man to make colors play the role of significant signs implanted on the narrow path of eternal salvation." There is no single idea that can include the symbolism of gold, red, scarlet, light blue, gray and white. This set of Absalon's color attributes seems to make less sense, directly, than the description of the Miller in the Prologue or of Alison at the beginning of the tale. The clerk's golden curls would have been proverbial for a wanton young lover, and might have seemed incongruous in his dull role as clerk. Being red-faced has been described as being amorous, foolish and deceitful, which is indeed the case for Absalom. The fact that his eyes are "gray as a goose" rather than a look was perhaps a reference to his softness. Since gray eyes were considered the pinnacle of feminine beauty (as in the Prioress), perhaps gray eyes were considered too feminine in a man's face. It is a rather washed out color, perhaps meaning that Absalom lacked vitality or virility. (He is later described as "delicate" and appears to be a bit of a dandy.) This is supported by the description of the young man's fancy shoes, which were in the latest fashion. His scarlet stockings could simply be an example of the dandy Absalon trying to wear the latest and greatest fashions., 1975.

Essay / Color symbolism in The Miller's Tale of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales selfishness and the cruelty of people towards each other, contains a wealth of color terms that add and expand the meaning of this rustic tale. The storyteller also, the Miller, is described in detail in Chaucer's "Prologue" with several colors attached to him. The colors Chaucer employed were important not only for vividness of description to help create a mental image for listeners (or readers), but also for clues to the nature of the characters described. Sometimes a single color term has multiple levels of meaning describing an aspect of a human being or a piece of clothing, and these meanings can create multiple readings of increasingly revealing and sometimes contradictory meaning. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Color symbolism was much more important in medieval society than it is today. Colors meant many things, and the different shades and hues chosen for clothing, furniture, and even hair dye (in addition to natural variations of these hues) were all imbued with meaning in a social and religious context:... .color [was] a favorite ploy of Satan and his acolytes, used in their tireless efforts to trip up humanity as it struggled on the rocky path to salvation. The followers of this theory thought color very suspect, doubly corrupted by the fall of man which had made the material world ephemeral and transitory... The Middle Ages, however, had followers of color who affirmed that color was in reality the product of a divine light which gave life to matter. (Pleij 1-2) An interesting note, described by Pleij, is that before the Renaissance, bright, rich colors were considered both formal and acceptable for everyday wear, which is why the Millers could wear "a hood blue and one white. coat" (Chaucer 18) for his traveling costume. Our perception of the Middle Ages, depicted in the film, is that of most ordinary people dressed in dull brown and gray fabrics, interspersed, perhaps, with the richer robes of the clergy and nobility However, color was used in every conceivable way in clothing, even among the poor, and if we could see the dress of the pilgrims described by Chaucer, we would most likely see a riot of color. It was not until much later than Chaucer's time that the colors of blue and black (the colors of the firmament and, therefore, of God) became the colors of "earthly self-denial, of extreme asceticism, of deep sadness and supreme humility” (Pleij 6). Bright colors became traits of the devil, and dark blues and blacks became the colors of the righteous (especially later among Protestants – note the uniform clothing). black costumes of the Dutch merchants of the Renaissance and the black and white costumes of the Puritans). Pilgrims in America.) This preference for blue and black has continued to the present day, in modern evening and formal wear, particularly for men (Ibid). The medieval people described by Chaucer had no such qualms about color. “If any era could be singled out as the most obsessed with color, it would be the Middle Ages.” (Pleij 4) So what do the colors in the description of the Miller, then the colors used by him in his Tale, have?contributed to the meaning of the story? The Miller's hair is "red as the hairs of an old sow's ear." Red was often associated with short temper and sexual incontinence, and red hair and reddish skin were associated with the "other" in medieval art. The devil is represented, in an infernal way, with red hair. (JTS article). Red hair was, in fact, a negative connotation for a whole series of evil characters, including “greedy millers” (Pleij 82). Negative medieval attitudes toward redheads were so severe that all redheads were "considered impostors and cheats." (Ibid) There may also have been a superstition that red hair was the product of conception that occurred during a woman's menstrual period. This sinful act, because the sexual act outside of the specific purpose of procreation was considered sinful, was considered to have scarred the child for life. “Generally speaking, physical characteristics involving the color red are almost never good” (83). Additionally, the Miller's nostrils are "black because broad" (Chaucer 18, "Blake Were and Broad," Benson 32), which may just be a derogatory personal description, but notions of black as a color associated with human beings were complicated in medieval times. Yet superstition persisted against things of the night, and the idea that black was a celestial color had not yet taken hold. In many cases, in medieval verse, "black is the color attributed to the devil and demons" (Heather, II, 215). In two lines so far, Chaucer has been able to create two demonic references to the Miller just within his personal framework. description. The running joke among medieval villagers, no doubt based at least partly on fact, was that millers were thieves, and so drawing a parallel between the miller and the devil was not only apt but funny. His description as strong, pig-like (and therefore greedy and overfed), with hair of porcine texture and devilish color, with a broad nose (a short or broad nose could "betray an amorous nature", Brewer 44, as does the nature of his story) is already so loaded with meaning that the Miller hardly seems to need further explanation. He is greedy; he is probably in love, and perhaps in a way that deviates from accepted mores. He is like the devil, perhaps in the sense of true evil, or, depending on how he interacts with the other pilgrims, only with a sense of malice. He was established as being out of the norm, with his red hair (a possible bias against the native Celts or Danish invaders), and his black nostrils complemented the facial image not only of ugliness, but also of a suggestion. of the breath of the infernal regions. Miller's "golden thombe" (Benson 32) was of course a direct reference to his cheating ways on the scale with his customers' grain and flour. Millers were proverbially considered thieves (Langdon 244) and the reference to “golde” – not only a metal but a color – meant that his thumb was indeed heavy. It is also a suggestion of his inhumanity, for while any part of his body could be other than flesh, he was less than human and was not as worthy of respect or sympathy as a true human being. Gold and red are often mentioned together in medieval verse (Heather, IV, 322) and the parallel with her red hair (which, of course, is actually orange, or red-gold) could be continued here. Or it could be that he is so fond of profit, in the form of grain or flourstolen, or of gold itself, that his thumb has become made of it. The Miller's "white rating and blown cap" (Benson 32) are more problematic. In the Middle Ages, white was almost always associated with purity and holiness, so her white coat belies Miller's nature. The whiteness of the soul after being shriveled (Heather, III, 266) was an important image in medieval poetry, and so it is difficult to say what, if anything, Chaucer was trying to describe by giving the Miller a smock white. Perhaps this was a reference to a real miller he had known who wore such a coat. It was an eminently impractical color (as well as being quite expensive, as bleaching fabrics was a difficult process in medieval times) for travel, as the pilgrim was sure to get dirty and dusty on a unpaved road on horseback. Perhaps, although there is little evidence of this, it was a symbol of his lack of practicality and his desire to show off his ill-gotten gains in dress. The "blow hode" is slightly easier to understand, but remains contradictory. It could be associated with the planet Venus (Heather, IV, 326,) which would again be a reference to Miller's tale of debauchery and his supposed sexual incontinence . However, Chaucer also explains that blue is the "color of amorous constancy" (referring to Canace's blue velvet meow in "The Squire's Tale", Chaucer 500). It's somewhat confusing. Perhaps this is either a validation or rejection of the virtue of Miller's own wife. He said: I have a wife, God knows, as well as you. But not for all the horses in my cart. Would I commit to taking it now? Calling myself a cuckold just because... I'm pretty sure I'm not and never have been. One should not be too curious in life, whether about the secrets of God or his wife (Chaucer 88). So perhaps the blue hood he wears, if it has color symbolism, is a sign of his belief in (or slight neglect of) his wife's fidelity. It could, conversely, be a mockery of his inattention to his own wife's sexual infidelities, and therefore also a substitute for the cuckold's horns. The blue cloth on the Virgin's head was proverbial in statues and paintings of that era (and down to the present day in many depictions of her), so the Miller's blue hood could either be its own homage to the Virgin Mary (which seems unlikely) or perhaps another Chaucer joke about the lack of chastity on the part of the Millers or their wives. This range of attributes and colors serves to enlighten, amuse and even confuse the reader. It would have been much simpler if the Millers were dressed in green (the color of “loving lightness” Chaucer 500). Being dressed as "clad in green...was [a] trait of the devil in medieval tradition." (Howard 62) But Chaucer doesn't make things so simple for us, and instead piles on the allusions and contradictions to make us stop and consider not only Miller's words, but the meaning behind his words (as his own can -be also- (enthusiastic protests of his wife's fidelity.) Without doubt, from these few terms, Chaucer creates in our minds a vivid and quite human image of the storyteller of Miller's Tale The first mention of. 'a color term in the Tale itself refers to the young lover Nicholas's wardrobe or linen press "covered with a faldyng reed" (Benson 68. The Faldyng was a kind of coarse cloth, presumably cheap and easy to obtain even for a poor student like Nicholas. The coarseness of the fabric is perhaps a marker of rudeness, and even deviousness.of Nicholas and his sexual and vengeful escapes. The image is quickly created of a man both concerned with luxury and appearances (red or scarlet was associated with luxury fabric, especially in the early Middle Ages when it was really the only luxury fabric available ) but only capable, either through his own base and garish tastes, or through the constraints of poverty, of making his room look like a cheap brothel. Red was also associated with the color of flame (Heather, IV, 320) which could be a parallel either with the devil (as in Miller's apparition reading, above) or with the flame of desire sexual. But again, there is a contradiction in this color. Red had, for many years, been associated with royalty and honor (Heather, ibid) and "scarlet and purple were particularly coveted, as these expensive red dyes were extracted from picky snails and worms to obtain” (Pleij 6.) was a fashionable color, and the red shade of the covering of Nicolas’s cupboards was perhaps chosen by him to attract young women. Nicholas' character "Deerne love he koude et of solas" (Benson 68, "And making love in secret was his talent" Chaucer 89) certainly supports the idea of a young man who would choose his clothes and furniture d 'apartment based on what he thought would allow him to get the most out of sexually with the young women of his acquaintance. Chaucer was so capable of creating a character's persona in just a few lines that it appears that color was part of his plan to evoke possible attributes of the characters through personal description. Red was “For centuries…considered the exact opposite of white” (Pleij 17) rather than black. If this thought was still dominant in Chaucer's time (and there is no direct evidence from the text, but it is a possibility), then Nicholas's red cloth in his room was like a red flag (or a light red in a prostitute's window, or the red cloth thrown over a lamp in a prostitute's bedroom) announcing her sexual desire and unscrupulous morals. Professor Sherbo supports the idea that the word choices in Chaucer were not about poetic diction, but were simply the words used in everyday prose. . For, as Dr. Johnson said, "...before Dryden's time there existed 'no poetic diction: no system of words both refined from the crudeness of domestic usage and free from the harshness of terms appropriate to particular arts.” One might object to this chronological division, as Shakespeare wrote "incarnadine" for red (Macbeth Act II ii), but from this idea we can suggest that Chaucer's motivation in choosing colors had more to do with symbolism of color as any type of "elegances or flowers of speech." (Sherbo 1) Since: Chaucer's poetry is almost entirely free of poetic diction, which is completely understandable. As early as 1913, Havens wrote "as the subjects of the poems approach those of ordinary conversation, the language and style become conversational, and... 'poetic diction' is employed only in passages which it is desirable to have so different. as possible from prose. (Sherbo 44) If this is true, and the conversational rather than formal tone of Miller's tale (it is called a "cherles tale" Benson 67, a moron being a lower class person) fits this idea, then the selection of color terms was not based on aesthetic, sonic, or musical grounds. The words could have been chosen to fit the meter (and Chaucer's color terms are short and easy to rhyme andinsert in a line - reed). , barred, white, col-blak, blown - as opposed to later poetic Latinisms, incarnadine, striation, achromatic, nigros or cerulean, for example) but were not chosen, at least not primarily, to create an audible effect. it can be argued that the choice of colors was based, on the one hand, on how they fit into the story and, on the other hand, on the symbolism that these colors represented. Continuing the description of the Alison fair, Chaucer uses a further wealth of color terms. Chaucer immediately tells us that his girdle was made of “striped silk” (Chaucer 90). Stripes or multi-colored fabrics, although expensive and flashy (like silk), could also be seen as a sign of one's deviance. “When a painter dressed a character in stockings consisting of one leg red and the other yellow, he was telling the viewer that he was a dubious character” (Pleij 73). Although we are not told the actual colors of the stripes on Alison's belt, it could be that this is Chaucer's first way of visually marking her as garish, showy, perhaps too willing to spend money. her rich old husband's money for nice things, and even owning her future sexual deviance. Women who chose to wear multi-colored clothing were religiously chastised. "The 13th century hellfire preacher, Berthold of Regensburg, railed against women who were carried away by fashionable colors. He noted that they were no longer content with the infinite variety of colors which God had made available to nature - an abundant supply of brown, red, blue, white, green, yellow and black No, the last feminine pride was to combine these colors in polka dots and black. stripes..." (Pleij 75) The idea that it was about female pride, and not only that. personal taste or even sexual advertising, fits Alison's character. She is so proud that she not only thinks she can cheat on her husband (which she and Nicholas easily accomplish), but feels no remorse for her deceptive acts and infidelity, and does nothing to saving her husband from the insults of the townspeople at the end of the tale (Chaucer 105-106). Her striped belt is a sign of her willingness to violate her marriage vows and her pride in cheating on her husband. A damning garment, indeed. “White as morning milk” was Alison's apron, as was her blouse. A white apron gets dirty quickly, so it was probably an expression of Alison's vanity, just as the more expensive white fabric was a marker of her willingness to spend her husband's money. White was considered "the most appropriate color for women" (Pleij 68) because it was the color of heaven and freedom from sin, so perhaps Alison wore these white clothes in order to give herself a false aura of respectability. But the embroidery on the blouse is black (Chaucer 90), showing not only Alison's ability to mix colors (which is frowned upon because contrary to God's nature), but also her desire to tone down the whiteness of his garment with the darkness of the devil. The embroidery too, in silk, was undoubtedly considered a vanity and was unusual enough for Chaucer to comment on it. We can imagine that Alison thought she was either creating a trend or leading it within her village. This too would have been considered immodest and perhaps an indicator of future sin. These magnificent clothes (a striped belt, a white apron, a silk blouse with black embroidery) don't stop there. There are "bands and ribbons" on his "milky mutch" (cap, Chaucer 90) to match this ensemble. Her white hairstyle may have been required, as notedabove, because hairstyle colors other than white were considered the height of vanity and sexual display. But Alison doesn't stop at a white bonnet: she gilds the lily with ribbons and ribbons, as a young woman might choose to do. It is interesting that Chaucer includes this detail. However, it's hard to say whether this was pure fantasy or another indicator of Alison's impudence. The next color term applied to Alison concerns her eyebrows. “And she had plucked her eyebrows into arches,/they were slender and black as sloes.” (Chaucer 90) A sloe, of course, is a small black fruit used to flavor alcohol, and is hardly a classic simile for feminine beauty. Chaucer injects some humor and satire here, as Alison's lower-class beauty would not be classified and cataloged in the same way as the upper-class beauty listed in, say, The Book of the Duchess. "...[Alison's description] is, indeed, partly a rhetorical joke, the aim of which is the absurdity of describing a carpenter's wife, a wanton village girl, as if she were a heroine , a noble, ideal beauty There is probably also an element of social satire here. is not said, although it seems likely we only know that his "complexion had a brighter tint/Than a new florin from the Royal Mint", [Ibid.] Also, "His tint is bright gold like that of n." 'no matter what romantic lady, but she is compared to a newly minted "noble" gold, a gold coin worth 6s 8d {What is the price of Alison?}" Brewer 42) were. not considered strange. In fact, it was considered the ideal "In the Middle Ages, blondes were expected to have brown eyes and black eyebrows, or at the very least dark brown. This combination, so strange to us today, paved the way for hair dyeing methods that allowed all those dark hairs to dye their hair. brown-eyed to achieve the ideal with relative ease. (Pleij 50) The reference to the Royal Mint guilder could suggest that Alison dyed her naturally dark hair a blonder color. This was not an uncommon practice. It is possible that the color of her hair was “bought” by gold. The other possibility of this reference too, certainly, is that his love or virtue was cheap and easily purchased with gold or other favors (good associations attached to this color) even in the case of natural blonds a several possible origins. The one that seems to have the most antiquity and credibility is the prejudice of Antiquity against invaders from the North, who naturally had bluer eyes than the majority of Mediterranean peoples. (Ibid) Although we do not know the color of Alison's eyes, it seems likely that her eyes were as dark as her eyebrows, and Alison may have been cited as an example of the medieval ideal of beauty (although be low class and full of humor). .) The next possible color term is "latoun" (Benson 69), or the brass-like alloy on her leather purse, which was "adorned with silk tassels and silver droplets" (Chaucer 90 ). Those metallic colors adorning the purse attached to her striped belt added another element to her already garish ensemble and were probably expensive. Silver-white, although this color is more linked to heraldry (silver) than the metallic colors described by Chaucer, is confusingly associated with early childhood (up to twelve years) when children were considered the more innocent andmore angelic. (Pleij 15) It seems unlikely that this association applies to Alison, a sexually mature and wanton girl of eighteen, so it seems much more plausible that Chaucer, here, with the mention in six lines of three metallic colors (brass, silver, and gold) with the addition of "pearl" to simply be a catalog of the richness with which this young woman is dressed. The next wave of color terms comes when Alison goes to church and sees Absalom, in love. Significantly, Alison "...seduced/The color of her face to make her mark:" (Chaucer 92). Either Alison pinched her face to redden her cheeks and make her more attractive (red faces were often given to fools in Terence's comedies, Pleij 50, and "blushing red faces... were considered a sign of madness, aggressiveness, deviousness", and betrayal. 82) In this small detail, the whole story is revealed. Alison is indeed sexually aggressive, devious in the extreme, and quite willing to betray not only sexually but socially her elderly husband. , while attractive, were not something one could find on a trustworthy woman. Moving on to the description of the Parish Clerk Absalon, another explosion of color attributes is given to him: His hair was all in golden curls and shone: Just like a fan he strutted outward, beginning at the left and right of an accomplished separation, Ruddy's face, his eyes gray as a goose, his shoes cut into tracery, as in the custom of old St. Paul, the pipe on his diet was scarlet through, and. all his clothes were neat and proper. In a light blue jacket, ruffled at the waist and labeled with laces as well. He went and wore a surplice just as gay and white as any flower on the jet. Six color terms are applied to it: golden, reddish, gray, scarlet, light blue and white (in Middle English: gold, reed, graye, rede, lightwaget and whit, Benson 69-70) in just eleven lines. It would be difficult to draw one or even two conclusions from this array of shades, assuming that the colors are meant to have a symbolic meaning other than description. "There is no unambiguous system of medieval color symbolism, unless the term is used to denote the desperate and contradictory attempts of medieval man to make colors play the role of significant signs implanted on the narrow path of eternal salvation." There is no single idea that can include the symbolism of gold, red, scarlet, light blue, gray and white. This set of Absalon's color attributes seems to make less sense, directly, than the description of the Miller in the Prologue or of Alison at the beginning of the tale. The clerk's golden curls would have been proverbial for a wanton young lover, and might have seemed incongruous in his dull role as clerk. Being red-faced has been described as being amorous, foolish and deceitful, which is indeed the case for Absalom. The fact that his eyes are "gray as a goose" rather than a look was perhaps a reference to his softness. Since gray eyes were considered the pinnacle of feminine beauty (as in the Prioress), perhaps gray eyes were considered too feminine in a man's face. It is a rather washed out color, perhaps meaning that Absalom lacked vitality or virility. (He is later described as "delicate" and appears to be a bit of a dandy.) This is supported by the description of the young man's fancy shoes, which were in the latest fashion. His scarlet stockings could simply be an example of the dandy Absalon trying to wear the latest and greatest fashions., 1975.

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