Chaucer pokes fun at the idea of courtly love by over enhancing it. In “The Miller’s Tale,” Chaucer ridicules the idea of courtly love through the lowbrow humor of his characters. Courtly love is a romantic story where virtuous characters win the love of a good woman through noble acts. It looks as if it would be a story of courtly love because the characters seem to worship the lady from afar and perform heroic deeds of valor to winter the lady’s heart using the rules of courtly love. Lowbrow humor is Chaucer's way of making fun of the idea of courtly love. Lowbrow humor requires no knowledge to understand. Bodily functions, humiliation, sexual activities can be understood by practically anyone, which is why they're defined as lowbrow…show more content… The Miller’s Tale turns into lowbrow humor when Alison tricks Absalon into kissing her rear end when he thinks he is going to be able to steal a kiss. As Chaucer writes, “And Absalon, so fortune framed the farce,/ Put up his mouth and kissed her naked arse” (103). Clearly this part of the tale represents lowbrow humor because it is supposed to be funny but doesn't require thinking. Another example of lowbrow humor is when in The Miller’s Tale it says, “And so the Carpenter’s wife was truly poked,/ As if his jealousy to justify,/ And Absalon has kissed her nether eye/ And Nicholas is branded on the bum” (106). This example defines lowbrow humor because it is funny and lowbrow is a comedy that relies heavily on insults and jokes about bodily functions. Characters are often tricksters admired for their cleverness. Chaucer uses this lowbrow humor to make fun of courtly love.
“ The Pardoner's Tale” is a sarcastic and ironic representation of the greed of the church that Chaucer uses to point out that the church was corrupt during this time period. The Pardoner's section is about how the Pardoner preaches about the sins
