Humour in Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" and Today's Literature

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Humour in Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" and Today's Literature
Humour has been a part of literature for ages. In the ancient ages, when Geoffrey Chaucer, "the father of English literature," attained the reader's attention, the tradition of comic writing was established. The world underwent radical social, cultural, political, and environmental challenges, changing the writers' and readers' perspectives. However, with changing intentions of the writer and purposes of literature, irony and humour continued to occupy literary arts. When literarily travelling from ancient times to the current, poets and authors used humour in different ways with different or similar intentions to amuse their readers and achieve several aims. When comparing Chaucer's humorous poem "The Miler's Tale" with today's humorous literature, the authors and poets use a comical tone, literary devices, and behaviour to ironically disclose the bitter realities of social life. At the same time, Chaucer does the same by mainly developing foolish characters, paradoxically teaching wisdom to the medieval reader.
Miller's Tale by Chaucer is a fabliau attempted to unveil medieval society with its corrupt moral atmosphere. The poet develops cartoon-like characters who deliver a hilarious climax by doing acts of trickery and cheating. For example, John's wife cheats on him with a scholar, Nicholas, by scheming a trick against John. They insert the idea in John's head that an incredibly heavy flood is approaching, so they have to plan to save themselves by fastening buckets to the ceiling. Meanwhile, the treacherous lovers plan to make love in John's bed (Chaucer 5). They play another trickery when making Absolon a fool by demanding a kiss. Both Alisoun and Nicholas present their butt to him for the kiss, and the latter gets branded by poker as a result (Chaucer 7). Both tricks result in a loud noise, alerting John to cut the rope of his bucket, and he falls on the floor, creating further noise. The whole situation is highly hilarious, achieved by mainly the foolish characters like John, his wife, and the clerks. Although the poet incorporates rich imagery, twisting of plot, and narration to pronounce the funny elements, the foolish characters are the primary source of amusement for the medieval reader, accustomed to a society full of treachery.
One of the best examples of today's humorous literature include "Problems with Hurricanes." It is a poem about the connection of death with dignity. The poet compares two different ways of dying of natural calamities. One of them is reality-based such as "death by drowning" and slamming "against a mountain," which attaches honour to the dead (Abcarian 2589). The other is coming from the poet's imagination like "killed by a flying banana," mango, or avocado, which are threatening the atmosphere like "projectiles" (Abcarian 2589). Although the poet discusses a severe matter, his tone is funny as he uses fruit as a source of death. Also, he declares in the poem that it will be hilarious to die of a flying fruit as an "ultimate disgrace" (Abcarian 2590). The poem is satirical, where the author mocks the incident of dying of natural disasters in a funny tone. The title also invites a severe natur...