Bakhtinian Carnival and Folk Resistance to Hierarchical Power in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Abstract

The paper will analyse the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in terms of the theoretical approach to the carnivalesque in the works of Mikhail Bakhtin with regard to the ways in which the folkloric laughter, everyday language or speech, and visuality of the body are used to resist the hierarchical systems of power in the Middle Ages. Based on the respective stories like The Miller Tale, The Reeve Tale, and The Wife of Bath Tale, the research holds that Chaucer exploits the folk traditions and carnival aesthetics to disrupt feudal, clerical, and patriarchal authority. Instead of serving to strengthen the dominant ideology, the text establishes a dialogic literary space in which voices of the bottom challenge the official culture. The paper places Chaucer in a wider context of folk resistance and shows how carnival is not only a comic relief of a political nature but also a culturally explosive act that occasionally turns the social order upside down and challenges the power of the institutions.