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

The Hidden Meaning of The Nuns Priests tarradiddle It has been suggested that a Chaucer tale exploits the nature of its music genre but also draws circumspection to the ideological biases and exclusions inherent in the genre2. In my opinion The Nuns Priests drool is a wonderful example of Chaucer testing the bounds of his chosen genre - in this case the beast metaphor. What is a beast fable? on the face of it a tale about animals, but one where animals argon utilize as embodiments or caricatures of human virtues, vices, prudences, and follies ... and the other typical qualities of mankind. They are primarily brief cautionary anecdotes that use the obvious resemblances between man and animals to organise a moral or push a proverb kinsfolk 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 some(prenominal) morals are offered. The tale is also entertaining, but not all 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 popular medieval traditions by putting them into setting 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 Will Three Theories in the Nuns Priests Tale The Chaucer check up on 10 (1975), 201-219. This from p. 208 9. Ian Bishop, The Nuns Priests Tale and the Liberal Arts, Review of English 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.