The Nun's Priest's Tale in the Canterbury Tales Essay

The Canterbury Tales features a character called The Nun (The Prioress). Chaucer describe her as a friendly and charitable Nun with a big heart, but also makes fun of her actions and looks. For example, “And she spoke daintily in French, extremely, after the school of Stratford-atte-Bowe, French in the Paris style she did not know.” (128-130). In addition to the blatant negativity he mentions “She was very entertaining” (141). He makes fun of her then mentions she is very entertaining as if she is entertainment to him. Her flaws and attitude are seen very clearly through the passage such as her bad french and table manners. This being said the Nun is told to be lower on social ranking. “To counterfeit a courtly kind of grace a stately

The Nun is not viewed in the same light, and as a result she wishes to gain the respect of others. The Nun is described as “a counterfeit of a courtly kind of grace” (Chaucer 148.143). The author views her as a fraud of courtliness because although she possesses a low position in society as a nun, she tries to act in a worldly fashion. Chaucer uses both of these pilgrims to contribute to the overall theme of one’s need to be liked by others by showing how the Nun goes out of her way to look sophisticated to gain others’ respect and fondness of her.

In terms of literary quality, Chaucer went great lengths to give all elements a bit of attention. The work is primarily about a knight who is pardoned from a rape on the condition that he acquires the answer to one of life’s

In the “General Prologue”, the Nun exposes the hypocrisy and manipulation of the Church through her actions. Nuns are supposed to devote their lives to Christianity while portraying a positive Christian figure. Chaucer describes the Nun’s actions toward being well mannered.

Chaucer lived in a time dictated by religion and religious ideas in which he uses The Canterbury Tales to show some of his views. Religion played a significant role in fourteenth-century England and also in Chaucer’s writing. His ideas of the Church are first seen in “The Prologue,” and he uses seven religious persons to show the influence of the religion in his writing. Although many of his characters appear to portray part of the corruption in the Church, he does give a small example in which one can conclude that he is speaking in praise.

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is an allegory that uses animals with human characteristics in order to portray the moral of the story. The story centers on a rooster named Chanticleer, who possesses many human qualities, such as speaking, singing, and the ability to dream. Partlet, a hen, is described as “polite, discreet, debonair, and companionable” (153). These are characteristics not typically associated with animals, which strengthens the message that the animals are representative of humans. Furthermore, Chanticleer and the other animals display human emotions, such as Chanticleer’s fear of his dream, Partlet’s disgust of Chanticleer’s fear, and the love that Chanticleer and Partlet feel for one another. Furthermore, the fox, Sir Russell, also

being, he begins to poke fun at him. He insists that the Knight was “a

Three of Chaucer’s tales are written with a central Christian theme, the Prioress’s Tale, the Second Nun’s Tale, and the Parson’s Tale. The Prioress’s Tale is said to be about a miracle of the Virgin Mary, the Second Nun’s Tale is a biography of Saint Cecilia, and the Parson’s Tale is considered a sermon. Just as The Canterbury Tales shows a theme of Christianity, it also shows a theme of religious corruption. In the tales of the Friar, Prioress, Pardoner, and Monk, corruption of the church is shown and influences each character in a different way. In the Friar, the focus is on money, horses, and the responsibility of his monastery. But, the Friar also seduces women and provide them with a spouse to stay out of trouble. In the tale of Prioress, Chaucer describes her as too busy being a court lady to take care of her nunnery. In the Pardoner, he takes advantage of others by taking money for giving pardons for the sins of others, even going as far as selling relics. The Monk takes money for forgiveness, refuses to help the poor, and pays other beggars to leave so he can attain all of the money from that area. He does all of this while he is supposed to be pledging his life to poverty and those less fortunate. Chaucer shows a theme of Christianity just as he shows a theme of religious corruption. As

Chaucer breaks the topic of sex into two basic parts: carnality and romanticism. Although carnal love is a controversial topic, Chaucer dives into the subject by creating characters with ferocious appetites for sex and the means to accommodate their desires. Whereas, to address romanticism, he relies heavily on

The Medieval Period in history brought along scores of fables about everything from knights engaging in courtly love to corruption in the Catholic Church. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer expertly encapsulates many of the great motifs of the era. The Tales are a series of stories and descriptions of characters of all social classes that were composed in the late 1300’s. Chaucer utilizes a multitude of literary techniques to convey his personal views of people, and ultimately, what they represent in society. The author uses such devices when depicting two morally contrasting characters, the Parson and the Summoner, that are documented in the Prologue.

Geoffrey Chaucer lived from thirteen-forty-three to fourteen-hundred. “Chaucer is one of the most interesting writers in English literature because he straddles two worlds: the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (Collin 1). He wrote his poems in middle-English, which is called Vernacular. “Geoffrey Chaucer chose to write his poetry in the Vernacular – the everyday language – of his time and place” (Chaucer et al. 18). Perhaps one of Chaucer’s most important literary works, “The Canterbury Tales,” sets the stage for a more in depth understanding of the feudal systems and classes of the Middle Ages.

      Judith A. Weise puts forth one of the more shocking theories concerning the Second Nun's Tale in her essay Chaucer's Tell-Tale Lexicon: Romancing Seinte Cecyle.  Weise argues that Chaucer's purpose for writing the saint's tale as a self-imposed literary penance for the "raptus" of Cecilia Chaumpaigne.  She posits:

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the prioress’s behavior can be interpreted as being part of the change occurring within religious institutions, which were changing to allow for freedom of thought and individual choice, as the nun does when she takes the liberty of customizing her fine garb by wearing it with beads and a gold brooch. The nun is one of the first characters to be given a name and as such is identified as being an individual, and not just seen as being a nun. The nun’s deviation from expected behavior and norms can thus be seen as a positive trait which Chaucer praises as women became more independent and redefined their own roles in society. Excessive understatement, negative imagery, and refined diction, however

In Chaucer’s famous novel: The Canterbury Tales, he describes many characters in a satirical way, while others he describes with complete admiration. The narrator (a constructed version of Chaucer himself) is staying at the Tabard Inn in London, when a large group of about twenty-nine people enter the inn, preparing to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. After the narrator talks to them, he agrees to join them on their pilgrimage. Although, before the narrator progresses any further in the tale, he describes the circumstances and the social rank of each pilgrim. There are two characters in these tales of the same social class, but Chaucer’s opinion on them vary greatly. These two characters are the beloved Parson, and the loathed Pardoner.

So we may dismiss him without ceremony, and imagine ourselves face to face with Chaucer; his is the all-pervading geniality and sly elvish humour of this sparkling tale” (Pearsall 39). Personally, I find this position to be almost as far-fetched as that of Broes. We have seen, quite consistently, throughout the various tales that Chaucer plays an intricate, even slightly devilish, game of hide and seek with the reader. No single character can be said to represent Chaucer, just as Chaucer never completely enters the psyche of his creations. In fact, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Of course, it is curious that we know so little about the Nun’s Priest. However, perhaps we might conjecture that this vagueness is a deliberate strategy. In other words, because we know so little about the Nun’s Priest, our ability to enter into the realm of the tale is unclouded by our preconceptions, or misconceptions, of this pilgrim. Too often, we have a tendency to judge the tale based on our liking or disliking of the particular pilgrim whose portrait remains indelibly printed on our impressionable minds. By withholding the portrait, Chaucer affords us a chance to really read the tale. Indeed, if we are to speculate at all, then we might be tempted to identify with this anonymous “Sir John” who is seemingly mocked, albeit gently, even by Chaucer: “And right anon his tale hath he attamed,/And thus he seyde unto us everichon,/This sweete preest, this goodly