“Gentle Cock” The Courtly Romance, the Homeric Epic, and the Moral Fable in Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest Tale”

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.

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[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

[4] The Iliad

[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?

The Rape of Leda: An Analysis of Supernatural, Victimization, Nationhood and Potential Vindication in Yeat’s Leda and the Swan

Yeats sonnet, “Leda and the Swan” is an aesthetic experience of the bizarre phenomenon of a girl’s rape by a massive swan. The sonnet evokes a sensory experience, one which brings to life the coming of a new age. However, through the bold and vivid images of abuse, the narrator brings attention to the victims of violence and draws attention to their helplessness. With phrases such as “staggering girl,” “helpless breast,” and “terrified vague fingers,” the reader is forced to empathize with the victim due to detailed description and alterations in personality—“Did she put on his knowledge with his power”--that this abuse unfortunately evokes.

In the poem the elements of the public and private and uncomfortably intertwine, in that the coming of age of the girl--the end of innocence coupled with her burgeoning womanhood, becoming a mother and simultaneously a victim—is portrayed on a grander scale. Yeats draws attention to how the narrative lens privileges Zeus as the statutory offender. Yet, it is only through the title “Leda and the Swan” that we are provided with a direct link to Greek mythology and literature, the only other indication being the reference to Agamemnon. The reference to Zeus symbolizes the supernatural, fate, beastliness, masculinity and the uncontrollable, and raises serious moral and philosophical issues, both in the relationship with gods, relationships with human beings, and relation with fate and the natural.

The caesura at the center of the first verse, “A sudden blow; the great wings beating still” (ll.1), highlights the unexpectedness of the Swans appearance, which heralds the supernatural or inexplicable. The large bird is already identified as larger than average, with its “great wings” and its ability to so easily dominate this girl: “Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed.” The reader is as shocked as Leda and experiences the same disorientation due to the lack of context around the sudden violence.

In Lines 3-4 we finally discover the identity of the molester: “By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,/He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.” The reader is encouraged to identify “him” and “he” as Zeus.[1] In the first stanza, diction such as great wings/staggering girl, thighs/webs, nape/bill creates parallels between the girl and the swan, a parallelism which stands in stark contrast to the rhythm of the first stanza. The diction finally converges in the last line of the stanza with the use of a word ascribed both to dominant bird and the subjugated girl: “He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.”

The beginning of the poem creates a sense of urgency with words like sudden blow, beating, staggering, shudder, mastered, burning, as well a portrait the girl’s weakness (caressed, helpless, terrified, vague, loosening). The alliteration in the poem strengthens the significance of the events, such as ‘great wings beating still Above the staggering girl’ as well as assisting to create the poem’s melody. This part of the poem’s rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD highlights the words ‘still’, ‘caressed’, ‘bill’, ‘breast’ and ‘push’, ‘thighs’, ‘rush’, ‘lies’.

The second stanza is more philosophical, one which brings forward two questions and draws attention to the strangeness of the events. These questions not only reflect on the disembodiment experienced by the rape victim, but the direct address to the reader draws attention to their inexplicability and Leda’s inability to fully reconcile the violation of body with the supernatural perpetrator. When in lines 5-6 the narrator asks “How can those terrified vague fingers push/ The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?” the implied answer is she could not. The use of the terms “vague” and “loosening” in association with Leda’s body leads one to ask whether or not the “terror” conveyed by the narrator translated physically into a committed resistance. In short, her body is helpless in comparison to the strength of Zeus.

            In Lines 7-8 this body is no longer Leda’s body: “And how can body, laid in that white rush,/ But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?” The lack of the possessive pronoun forces us to become the body—it is, quite literally, any body. In fact, Yeats never establishes a distance between reader and Leda; like her, we can only see "white rush.” The heartbeat she hears is both that of an animal and a god, and therefore decidedly inhuman and “strange.” We are placed so close to the swan that we can hear the heartbeat, and faintly make out the white rush of the feathers. Yeats evokes her helplessness in the “vagueness” and strangeness of the material details which might orient us in space and time.

The tone changes at sestet, where the poem’s subject shifts from Leda and the swan to Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and the Trojan War. The shift or turn is the completion of the sexual act: "A shudder in the loins” echoes a shudder in the poetic lines.  The "broken wall" and "burning roof and tower" refer to the famous burning of Troy. Leda here, while not the direct cause of the Trojan War, “engenders” that conflict through her victimization. This stanza links together the prior scene with Leda and the swan to Leda and Zeus’s daughter, Helen and Leda and Tyndareus’ daughter, Clytemnestra, who supposedly bring the death of Agamemnon and the fall of Troy: “The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.” Lines 10 and 11 are very dramatic, and seem to emphasize blame while not explicitly giving that blame an object. Could it be the narrator is evoking the sense that the victim is to blame? In this sense, “being caught up” reads essentially as a blaming of the victim. Zeus himself remains untouched by the narrator’s scrutiny; the use of the term “brute” in the next line seems to compliment the strength of the swan, rather than an accusation. If Leda is “mastered,” then it could fall on her as being too easily taken or “caught up”. Despite that “caught” echoes line 3, in which Leda was “caught up” in the Swan’s bill, it is easily read metaphorically as caught up in lust, or the emotions of the moment.   

The verb tense shifts to the past in lines 11-12: “Being so Caught up,/ So mastered by the brute blood of the air”. The narrator seems to ask if the girl, “mastered by the brute blood”, changed and herself became a ‘brute’—this act of uncompromising, self-seeking, “indifferent” violence against her inspiring violence to rival this force. The poem concludes with a rhetorical question that remains unanswered: “Did she put on his knowledge with his power/ Before the indifferent beak could let her drop” (ll.13-14) The reader much like the ‘staggering girl’ is dropped from the emotional apex of the poem. The sudden divergence from the iambic pentameter-- that is present throughout and creates and shapes the textual authority of the poem-- emphasizes and allows for this sudden drop. It is also suggests a divergence from the former order created through the iambic pentameter, and thus symbolizes the first act nation building, one which is the destruction of the former order to allow for the building of a new one. This may indicate transference of power prior to the “drop” in that is raises the question of whether or not Leda acquired some of Zeus’s powers. That the question remains unanswered asks us whetehr the brevity of the event allowed for this transference.

Zeus’ indifference to Leda and to the reader—outside of the brutality of rape—raises a variety of questions as to the relationship between the ‘gods’ or the ‘supernatural’ with humanity and civilization. The narrator-as-observer of the rape adopts an ambivalent tone in the last six lines, a rhetorical and historical distance that echoes Zeus’ indifference. In the last line the indifference on part of the brute is seemingly harsher then the rape itself. After the brute receives his release—achieved his goal— he leaves. How is one to reconcile this helplessness of Leda, and her placement at the forefront of a mythical war, with the indifference of her supernatural rapist?

The poem allows for a multitude of approaches. One can read the girl as a victim of sexual abuse who, through this one scene, is either transformed from victim to agent, or becomes simply a vessel for Zeus’ power. Another reading casts Leda as a representation of civilization itself, subject to the whims of the supernatural and powerless despite futile attempts in resistance. However through the act of birth, this power of the supernatural power is claimed and commodified, capable of being harvested for the utilitarian purpose of the new generation. The third approach is to view the violation of the girl as a necessity, and thus questions our individual relationship with the events that we are unable to explain, let alone justify.  In the events of one’s own life, let alone the lives of others, one is forced to take on the role of the helpless bystander, a witness who nonetheless and paradoxically becomes progenitor of an unforeseen outcome.

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[1] Yeats expects that his readers have a familiarity with the myth of Leda and the swan and therein know that "he" means Zeus. 

An Interpretation of Wordsworth’s relations with the city in “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

You are Only Beautiful When you Are not Yourself or

That dress looks pretty!

An Interpretation of Wordsworth’s relations with the city in “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

William Wordsworth known for his appreciation of the natural world focused on nature and man's relationship with the natural environment is the poet of “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3,1802” a sonnet written in appreciation of the city of London as its subject. At first glance it appears that the poem describes the city in a very positive way, communicating its power and 'splendor'. A suggestion being made by Wordsworth against his traditional approach that suggests that the view of the city is a rival for anything naturally occurring: 'Earth has not anything to show more fair' is the opening line. The city becomes commodification of the natural and therein beautiful only in its sleeping state the opposite of what it is.

Thus, rather than an admiration of the city the poem becomes visible to the reader as  unnatural and monstrous, beautiful only in reflection of the natural and beautiful only when it is not all of the things characteristic of a city such as people, motion and perhaps even more dramatically only beautiful when it is dead. Negative language seemingly used in lines 1, 9 and 11 to create the impression that the city is superior to nature, that London is the pinnacle of creation. "Never did the sun more beautifully..."(9) "Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!" (11) However, this is immediately contrasted with a reverence for the natural in that, it is only through the contrast of the city and the beauty of natural which therein is made more beautiful and the ultimate revelation that the city in this particular moment is void of those things which are characteristic of a city.

Wordsworth begins the sonnet dramatically as if daring the reader to disagree with him “Earth has not anything to show more fair:”(1) however, this is a type of exaggeration given that his implication is that at the this particular moment it seems to him the most beautiful scene in existance this image of the cities beauty will however be turned on its head at the couplet. The line concludes with a collen suggesting that he will illustrate what the earth has too show however instead of what "showing" what the scene is as one would expect given the shortness of the sonnet form. He justifies his decision to stop his coach along the way to look at the view from the bridge: “Dull would he be of soul who could pass by/ A sight so touching in its majesty:”(2-3) through his claims that anyone who didn't stop, who just passed by with a glance, would be "dull...of soul." The use of dull here potentially a reference to the monotony of everyday life to the a foreshadowing of the peoples dullness and incapacity of witnessing the beauty of the natural in their daily lives. There however and understanding that the people are a part of the city, and in being a part of the life of the “mighty heart” of line 14 and incapable of viewing the beauty of the city by the act of being part of it. The use of the phrase "touching in its majesty," in its combining of the public and the private in that the word ‘touching’ implies an intimate act whereas ‘majesty’ is something not usually associated with these intimate actions a potentially reference implying once more the relationship between the city and the natural as something not usually witnessed and these two forces as tradition. The intimacy of this moment is also one that is foreseen as being taken away by the coming to life of the city. 

The poem continues relating the city to the natural and once more to its human subjects: “This City now doth, like a garment, wear/ The beauty of the morning;” (4-5) nobody wears garments but people here the city is wearing however here the city is wearing something that is beautiful therein it is not the city thus what is being admired is not necessarily the city but the cloth that it is wearing. The rest of the poem with the exception of the couplet is hence a reflection of the clothes and what they do for the city.

This image of being clothed is immediately followed by nudity  “silent, bare,/ Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie/ Open unto the fields, and to the sky;”(5-7)because of the semi-colon before them, "silent" and "bare" more likely to refer to sights of the city , however the ambiguity could allows it to the morning to also be seen as silent and bare however silent, bare in line 5 that don't seem completely attached to what comes before or after them and while the morning is always silent and bare the city is not always silent and bare. In line 6, he is preforming a type of a scan on the city in this state the use of temple outsized of paganizing the city creates an image of the city a body in that in which the listed items mapped out from top to bottom by the speaker are its body part. The use of open if not sexually revealing, implies a receptiveness to the beauty of the morning a beauty which is not usually accepted on part of the city thus the use of the word open/ bare are direct references to the city accepting something in its sleep which it would not recognize or accept at any other time.

The octet ends with another reiteration of the image of the city not being a city “All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.” London is known for its fog and it seems strange to imagine London without fog or without any smoke from chimneys obscures the bright light—emphasizing the image of London as  the agent of the beauty and what ultimately appears beautiful is the sunlight whose image can through the glass be ever changing and theirin achieving the affect of "glittering" The changing image of the light is one which due to the inactivity of the city cannot be associated with the city but must therefore be associated with the image of the sun and thereby something natural. Returning to the bold claim posed the beginning of the poem he notes that "Never did sun more beautifully steep/In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;" (9-10) here the claim seems to be that the beauty of London surpasses the countryside, these sights is far superior to the "First splendour" that falls upon any boulder or mountainous cliff ("rock"), or a hillside in the country being superior however it does not seem here that this beauty is retainable given that the unnatural state-- and the beauty which is reflected is one of the nature or the sun which "steep" into the landscape of London. The image of steep evoking that of a teabag steeping into water in that the water has to be pure in order for the tea to leave its flavor and therein uninhabitable by human life in order for the water to be clear reiterating the image posed in lines 4-5 in which the city is wearing the beauty of the morning a beauty which is attributed to the morning (a natural circumstance) and not to the city itself whom is simply garbing itself within the beauty in its ability to reflect it.

Line 11-12 continue with this image of the city as something comparable to the natural and only beautiful in its ability to reflect the natural: "Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!/ The river glideth at his own sweet will:" in which the speaker claims that London makes him feel calm which appears strange considering that it is the city and this something which one could traditionally and Wordsworth usually does associate with a calm serene hillside such as the one described in line 10. Lines 13-14 reflecting his full awakening to that the beauty of the city and this moment in which he has been caught is not something traditionally associated with the city: “Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;/And all that mighty heart is lying still!” Thus, when awake the city will be none of the things which the speaker so relished of the landscape when it was lying still. However the phrase “that mighty heart is lying still” becomes more than simply sleep but extend itself to a form of death. While the lines Dear God  . . . and all that mighty heart is lying still! with its two exclamations emphasizing the enthusiasm with which the lines are delivered it seems that the reader is greatly surprised by the lack of life of the city. A heart here is implied as lying still it means that it is not being which by extent implies that it is dead.

Words on lines three ('majesty') and 14 ('mighty') suggest the strength of power of the city, rather like a lion, or a monarch while like in some of Wordsworth’s poems this may have refer to the natural here it expresses the city. Nevertheless the message is subversive, while Wordsworth is in awe of the power he is experiencing this power is in line three a reflection of the natural and in line 14 ultimately something at rest and therein admirable otherwise ‘dull’ and equivalent to a type of a sleeping giant powerful but lacking in mental capacity.  

The poem is showing beauty of the garb that is too say the natural world rather than individual wearing the garb the city itself and their in attention is being drawn to the lack of natural beauty of the city is made even more apparent by the emphasis on the beauty of the natural which it does not traditionally possess. The image of the city in a September morning does grant Wordsworth to appreciate the natural world more so than prior to this moment but only as a thing which emphasizes the beauty of the natural, he has become at once fully aware that "Never did the sun more beautifully..."(9) "Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!" (11) These are not however expressions of the beauty of the now sleeping but rather of the beauty of the natural world which becomes exipted through the display on Westminster bridge on September 3 of 1802.