When he pushes aside the Monk and insists on telling his own “noble tale” to “quite the Knight’s tale,” Chaucer’s Miller undermines the estates structure and subverts traditional notions of power and authority. With reference to one or more works, discuss how early British literature represents social inequality or political injustice? Why might a fictional representation of inequality and injustice be preferable to a factual one? What kinds of literary devices and genres are best suited to socio-political criticism? To what degree is early British literature “political”? Works to be included should be “The Canterbury Tales”, The Miller’s Tale.Works to use can also include “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight””Beowulf”, “Lives of the Poets” and/or Petrarch, “Rima”
