The Hidden Meaning of The Nuns Priests Tale Essay -- Nun’s Priest’s

The Hidden Meaning of The Nuns Priests Tale It has been suggested that a Chaucer bilgewater exploits the record of its genre but also draws attention to the ideological biases and exclusions inherent in the genre2. In my opinion The Nuns Priests Tale is a wonderful lawsuit of Chaucer testing the bounds of his chosen genre - in this case the masher fiction. What is a beast fable? Obviously a tale or so animals, but one where animals are enforced as embodiments or caricatures of benevolent virtues, vices, prudences, and follies ... and the other typical qualities of mankind. They are gener eithery brief cautionary anecdotes that use the obvious resemblances between man and animals to point a moral or push a proverb home entertainingly3. Chaucer can be seen to exploit the nature of the beast fable fully in The Nuns Priests Tale. It contains all of the traditional elements mentioned above the central characters are the chickens Chauntecleer and Pertelote, and Russell the fox the culpability, gullibility, guile and boastfulness of the characters are examined the tale is brief, approximately 650 lines and several morals are offered. The tale is also entertaining, but not only because of its caricatures of human traits. The tale contains numerous sub-genres such as the romance, rhetorical debate, and Christian misogyny, and it is the interplay of these sub-genres with the framing beast fable that creates much of the humour. In The Nuns Priests Tale Chaucer shows up some of the worst excesses of these favorite medieval traditions by putting them into context with his animal characters. The incongruity of a chicken taking part in a debate on the significance of dreams, for example, is inherently comic, but does not just... ...9), 251-270. This from p. 266. 8. F. Anne Payne, Foreknowledge and Free bequeath Three Theories in the Nuns Priests Tale The Chaucer Review 10 (1975), 201-219. This from p. 208 9. Ian Bishop, The Nuns Priests Tale and the fine-lo oking Arts, Review of side of meat Studies NS30 (1979), 257-267. This from p. 17. 10. Payne, p. 205. 11. Walter Scheps, Chaucers Anti-fable Reductio ad absurdum in the Nuns Priests Tale, Leeds Studies in English 4 (l970), 1-10. This from p. 7. 12. Bishop, p. 266. 13. Payne. p. 218. 14. Payne. p. 210. 15. Payne. p. 211. 16. 0wen, p. 267 17. Jill Mann, The Speculum Stultorum and the Nuns Priests Tale, The Chaucer Review 9 (1975), 262-282. This from p. 275. 18. Friedman. p. 253. 19. 0erlemans, p. 318. 20. Scheps. p. 8. 21. Payne, p. 214. 22. Mann, p. 277.