Inaugural Lecture: Chaucer's philosophical sleaze? 'The Miller's Tale' and all that

Professor Alcuin Blamires will consider what philosophical framework might underpin Chaucer’s comic tales, particularly that of 'The Miller's Tale'.

Professor of English, Alcuin Blamires, will deliver his Inaugural Lecture titled: ‘Chaucer’s philosophical sleaze? ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and all that’. The Lecture will be introduced by the Warden of Goldsmiths, Professor Geoffrey Crossick.

Professor Blamires will consider what philosophical framework might underpin Chaucer’s comic tales, despite their reputation - particularly that of 'The Miller’s Tale' - as works that radically resist or mock serious meaning.

Lecture Summary:
Chaucer’s comic tales have a place in the cultural imagination as tours de force of romping bawdiness – artfully put together, certainly, but not thought to be open to philosophical or moral interpretation. The lecture will challenge this view by proposing that these tales nevertheless constituted one means by which Chaucer was able to explore his abiding philosophical interests in human initiative and providence, and that this particularly comes through the plot of the most joyously and irreverently mischievous of them all, The Miller’s Tale.

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