At first glance the Nun's Priest's Tale appears to be a simplistic beast fable that provides the reader with a very basic moral lesson. Too often it is overlooked as one of Chaucer's lesser tales in terms of content and literary meaning. However, after a very close reading and much research I am of the opinion that this tale is one of Chaucer's most ingenious. This is true, in that Chaucer is able to encapsulate a number of different genres while offering the reader several different moral lessons, all in the framework of a simple and short tale whose main characters are a rooster a fox and a hen.

Before one can analyze a beast fable one must know exactly what a beast fable is. A beast fable is obviously a story that has animals as main characters. It goes beyond that however, a true beast fable is one where "animals are used as embodiments or caricatures of human virtues, vices, prudences, and follies ... and the other typical qualities of mankind. They are generally brief cautionary anecdotes that use the obvious resemblances between man and animals to point a moral or push a proverb home entertainingly" (Coghill and Tolkien 12).

Despite being armed with the foreknowledge of his dream and having faith in it's meaning, Chauntecleer fails to make any connections and flies down from the safety of his beam into the danger of his nightmare. It is this action that brings the fox into, and presents the major conflict for, the Nun's Priest's Tale. "The decent from the beam is represented by Chaucer as the fatal, pivotal action of the tale" (Bishop, 266). In addition, it also begs the questions, why did he do it, what was going through Chauntecleer's chicken-sized mind? Why did this fateful encounter between the rooster and the fox occur?

Preacher and the Mermaid's Song," Chaucer Review 7 (1972), 250-266.

After the comical description of Chautecleer, Chaucer introduces the reader to the rest the hens in the story as shown in the lines, "Sevene hennes for to doon al his plesaunce, whiche were his sustres and his paramours" (2866-7). These lines indicate that Chauntecleer was not only sexually active with each of these hens, but that these relationships were incestuous in nature. Chaucer's invocation that the nature of these relationships was incestuous makes the very idea of courtly love seem ridiculous. However, of all the hens at his disposal Chauntecleer did have a clear favorite, Pertelote. The following passage describes Chauntecleer's instant attraction to Pertelote. "Syn thilke day that she was seven nyght oold/ That trewely she hath the herte in hoold/ Of Chauntecleer" (4063-4064, 2875).

Oerlemans, 0nno. "The Seriousness of the Nun's Priest's

The third and final sub-genre presented in The Nun's Priest's Tale is that of Misogyny a common in medieval literature, which is often linked to Christian beliefs. It begins with Chauntecleer's belittling of his wife's Pertelote's opinion about dreams, which he concludes with a veiled insult containing a reference to Genesis. Chauntecleer tells Pertelote "In principio/Mulier est hominis confusio" (3163 3164). This term literally means that woman is the downfall of man. However, Chauntecleer sarcastically mistranslates it to her as the exact opposite of its true meaning: "Womman is mannes joye and al his blis" (3166). In other words saying that woman is the source of man's happiness. His choice to present a facetious and flattering mistranslation can be viewed as having a misogynist tone, as well as an ironic one, considering that flattery causes his own undoing when he meets the fox.

y, through the sheer mass of his evidence alone, the reader is led to believe that Chauntecleer wins the argument. However, one scholars opinion of Chauntecleer's argument is that, "he uses his precedents only to prove the contrary of what someone else has argued rather than to master his primary experience in order to interpret it"

Rather extensive thought is given to the mere event of a fox lurking around in a cabbage patch. Why are there so many theories? What, is the point of it all? Is there a point to it? After all, this meeting between Chauntecleer and the fox is not even fatal! Perhaps the point of the Nun's Priest's rhetorical display is to point out the different outcomes of theoretical debate whether pre-determined or not.

The Nun's Priest's Tale has been seen "as an opportunity for Chaucer to enter into the literary conflict ... about the use and value of the fable form" (Friedman, 253). I believe that in this tale Chaucer is, in part satirizing a fundamental weakness in the beast fable form by barraging the reader with a plethora of morals.

This extremely anti-feminist statement is made in the tense middle section of the tale, after the character development and satire of the opening section, and before the climax of the fox chase and escape. It can be argued that because of its central placement, it may be seen as the most significant moral lesson of the tale. One must ask the question; why is this anti-feminine statement given such emphasis? One possible explanation lies in the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3367
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)