Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest Tale calls upon
devices from three distinct genres. While the most apparent is the moral fable,[1]
elements of the courtly romance and Homeric epic are employed to surprising
effect. The question then raised is:
what is the purpose of entertaining all three genres within a single narrative?
The romantic facets of this tale serve to make the animals more human, but the
epic style of the tale endows them with a superhuman quality. In turn, the
personification of the animals embodies the human in an animalistic form. Thus,
the coalescence and interaction of these genres simultaneously elevate and
subordinate the human condition.
The Clerk’s Tale, Miller’s Tale, and
Shipman’s Tale can be read as responses to the Knight’s version of the courtly
romance, in that each adapts the love-triangle model the Knight introduces.
Only in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale does the anthropomorphization of the animals, and
use of Homeric forms of address, serve to comment on that trope in a new way.
In this paper, we will ask: Does the use of these three genres in “The Nun’s
Priest Tale” in any way serve as a reification of the courtly romance, the
Homeric epic[2],
and the moral fable? Are these forms antithetical to the content of the
narrative, or complimentary to it? And
in either case, how do the languages of courtly romance, epic and fable
function as commentary on the “moral” the tale ostensibly conveys?
By portraying these animals as larger
than life, the tale says something about the status of the human condition by
way of the human characteristics the animals possess. The fable subordinates
our false sense of superiority (over animals) and the epic reinforces that
false sense of superiority in its aggrandizement of the human animal.
Chanticleer for instance is called a gentle
cock and his crowing, sweeter than that of any other cock: "Thanne crew
he, that it mighte nat ben amended" (2858). Pertelote is described in
aristocratic terms such as “a faire damoysele” (4060). She is courteous,
discreet, gracious and companionable in addition to having the best coloring on
her throat. But the personification of these animals indicates that even if we
are “Gentil,” we might still be in the same boat as these foul with regards out
animalistic nature.
The use of the Homeric epic can be noticed
in the narrator’s asides: “O false
mordrour, lurkynge in thy den!” (3226), and “O Chauntecleer, acursed be that
morwe / That thou into the yerd flaugh fro the bemes!” (3230–3231). These
narrative choices are reminiscent of the vocative address in works such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, and promote an epic style that can be traced throughout the
entire work. However this tone is continuously contrasted with mundane, trivial,
and domestic events, which are not often found in the epic genre.
The comparison between the “Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee
/ Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille / Whan that they wolden any Flemyng
kille, /As thilke day was maad upon the fox” (3394–3397) as well as the
multitude of other historical references adds to the aggrandizement of the
circumstances, as if raising them to the level of historical epic. The actions
of the main characters in the tale, however trivial, still attract more
attention than the events around them, however grand. The widow and the two
daughters who chase the fox, for instance, somehow exceed the ruckus made by
the rioters from the peasant revolt.
The narrative however does
not take on the form of grandeur but rather appears mundane and ordinary. There
is a widow, having two daughters. She has cattle and sheep as is typical with
the villagers. She has a cock and many hens. This is clearly not the beginning
of an epic: there is no calling on of the muses[3]and also no reference to
the rage of Achilles[4]. Thus, the landscape and characters
are not intrinsically epic in and of themselves. Rather, it depicts the
pastoral landscape typical of the animal fable, but the setting is elevated by the
use of the language of a philosophical
poem. Imbued with the characteristics of
grandeur, the cock and the hen behave, talk, argue, and conduct themselves like
extraordinary human beings. For example, Chauntecleer and Pertelote are a
"married" couple and bicker as humans. Furthermore, they also
"love" each another. "He loved hir so that wel was him
terwith" (2876). Even their act of lovemaking appears an epic human feat
rather than the mating of animals. “He fethered Pertelote twenty tyme, / And
trad hire eke as ofte, er it was pryme. [He clasped Pertelote with his wings
twenty times, and copulated with her as often, before it was 6 A.M]”
(3177–3178). The courtly romance here adds an element of humanity in the
description of both as distinctly human and subject to the human/ animal
desires.
Additionally
the fowls are learned and philosophical. They have discussions about dreams and
address issues central to the human condition. In place of two fouls
(Chauntecleer and Pertelote), we see two philosophers both intent upon sticking
to their point of view, but (not unlike the conversations at St. John’s College)
end without a conclusion or consensus.
It
is not essential, however, to the telling of the Nun’s Priest Tale to place the
fowls within the stature of grandiosity, and therefore must be a stylistic choice
on the part of the Nun’s Priest. The story might as well have gone: there is a widow, having two daughters. She
has cattle and sheep as is usual with the villagers. She has a cock and many
hens. Once, a fox carries away the cock, but the cock later he escapes. The extended
amount of time devoted to relaying the dream sequence calls upon epic
conventions, but this dream sequence amounts to a tangential aside, and has no
bearing on the moral fable. The musings about dreams are simply disregarded
once the fox appears, and never returned to again. It in fact draws attention
away from the moral aspect of the story, and therefore the epic serves to
subvert the fable.
While
the supposed moral significance of the story could have been portrayed without
the dream sequence, it is nevertheless tempting to center discourse around the
Pertelote’s and Chauntecleer’s dream dialogue (as was the case with our class
discussion about this tale). However, the tangential nature of the dream
sequence—this prolonged conversation has no bearing on the actions of the
characters—asks us whose philosophy of dreams is correct: Chauntecleer's, or
Pertelote's? This point is further confused by Chanticleer’s philosophical
aside, which implies that one should pay attention to dreams, but when the fox
comes (as his dream foretold), not even Chanticleer heeds the advice he gave
himself, and instead falls prey to the flattery of the fox.[5]
Because of the seemingly incompatible natures between
courtly romance, Homeric epic, and moral fable, the Nun’s Priest Tale creates
tensions that are not easily resolved. The aspects of the epic are placed in
the foreground, but nevertheless underline the moral fable, in that the Cock’s
philosophical musings and romantic inclinations allow for the moral of the fable
to find its voice. If Chauntecleer had heeded the advice of his own
philosophical and intellectual ramblings, the moral fable could not have
existed, and the point concerning flattery could not have been made. The true
moral of the story is conveyed not by the plot, but by combination of the three
genres that, commenting on one another, reflect on the status of the human condition.
The foul, the human being, and the epic hero, are all subject to the romantic
and philosophical in this story. To be animal, human, more than human, is still
to be subject to base desires.
[1] A moral fable,
according to Ben Edwin Perry in his essay Studium Generale : relates a
fictitious event in the past for the obvious purpose of illustrating an ethical
truth (19).
[2] Aristotle
defines the epic as: the tragedy of a conspicuous man, who is involved in
adventures events and meets a tragic fall on account of some error of judgment,
i.e., Hamartia, which throws him from prosperity into adversity; his death is
not essential.
[3] The first lines
of the Odyssey begin with a call to the muses
[5] It could be that
Chanticleer is a personification of the Nun’s Priest himself. Is he himself
fancy himself a chivalrous romantic, prone to flattery? Is he ignoring the
advice of his own fable, by using epic and romantic conventions?
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