Peeling Back the Chaff

Victoria Draper

8 May 2020

Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale narrates a comedic beast-fable that ends with a challenge by the Nun’s Priest to sift through the “chaff” of the tale and discover the true meaning. To achieve this, one must first find the content of the text that can be considered chaff to find the “grain”—the small kernel of nutrients that feeds the audience something substantial and, assumedly, healthy.

This essay sifts through the narrative elements of the text to find the Nun’s Priest’s intended moral.

The poem explicitly outlines two obvious morals; one is written right at the end of the tale, claiming some talk too much when they ought to be silent, and vice versa, and the other moral describes vanity as man’s downfall as it almost was Chauntecleer’s. But the Nun’s Priest’s final order to disregard the “chaff” of the story challenges critics to discover hidden meaning within the multi-layered text. The final two possibilities this paper will explore are the idea that there is a blend of multiple intended morals that the audience is meant to find for themselves—not dissimilar to the interpretation of biblical passages—or that there is simply no moral at all.

Through exploring other theories on the text, the analysis concludes that Chaucer intentionally layered the piece to have multiple meanings, but through challenging his audience to decipher the true meaning of the tale he both removes all meaning and quietly ridicules his audience for their desires to discover meaning in an otherwise satirical piece.

Ralph E. Hitt, in “Chauntecleer As Mock-Hero Of The ‘Nun's Priest's Tale” examines the “purpose of the poem” with the intent to show how Chauntecleer is an object of satire in the “ambitious and extensive mock-heroic burlesque of the poem” (Hitt 75). He argues that the action in the story and narrator’s ironic tone prove anti-feminist materials in the text are not the “central interest” of the poet (Hitt 76).

Hitt outlines the stages of the “mock-heroic battle” that Chauntecleer fought in:

The first is the battle of wits between Pertelote and Chauntecleer […], ostensibly won by the hero, finally, through flattery; the second battle is the first conflict of wits between Chauntecleer and the fox, including rising physical action when the fox catches the cock’s throat and reaching a climax in the boisterous epic chase; it is won by the fox, through flattery; and the third and last battle is the second phase of the wit-battle between the cock and the fox; this one is won by Chauntecleer, again through flattery. (Hitt 78)

He also notes that the part in which Chauntecleer is caught by the fox is “punctuated with epic lamentation and extended comparison” (Hitt 78), describing the barn chase scene (3375-3401) and Chauntecleer’s “explicit comparison [...] between his dream and the dreams of great men of history and story” (l.2972-3150) as “ludicrous extended comparison”, highlighting the poem’s burlesque nature (Hitt 78).

Hitt describes the Nun’s Priest’s Tale as a “story of a “noble hero” who falls through vanity rather than through the bad advice given him by his wife” (Hitt 80).

Hitt takes Pertelote’s side in her argument on the dream’s nature being about the imbalance of the humors (Hitt 80):

Swevenes engenderen of replexiouns,

And ofte of fume and of complexiouns,

Whan humours been too habundant in a wight. (l. 2923-25)

Hitt assumes Pertelote loves her husband because of the pains she goes through in prescribing him, showing that she “genuinely wants to avoid his taking violent fever as a result of his disturbance” and argues that Pertelote’s “wisdom extends to an understanding of her mate”, for she “allows” him the last word in the argument “because he flatters her” (Hitt 81).

This puts Pertelote at a higher standing than simply the “beloved” of the hero. Pertelote maintains power even after being silenced and oppressed by the male (Chauntecleer’s) voice through the fact that she was correct in both her argument against the promise of death the dream brought and how Chauntecleer’s demise would come sooner from an imbalance within him—that imbalance being his vanity: “Chauntecleer is caught and carried to the woods, but the fact that he does not die proves that his self-styled prophetic dream is at most only partly fulfilled” (Hitt 84). Thus, according to Hitt, “Pertelote’s foresight was correct” (Hitt 83).

Hitt concludes, “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is not classical epic or tragedy but mock-heroic burlesque. What else but a happy ending—the hero’s feathers only slightly faller—could prove Pertelote infalliably correct?” (Hitt 85).

Corinne E. Kauffman, however, disagrees. She proves through the individual analysis of the herbs Pertelote prescribed to Chauntecleer, that Pertelote is not as educated in healthy practices as she appears to be.

Kauffman’s analysis of Pertelote’s prescription supports Chauntecleer’s strong disregard for her argument:

Not only is her proportion of hot to cold quite wrong; her compound is so powerful as to endanger even the most virile and durable digestive system. Three of the seven herbs, laurel, hellebore, and catapuce, are described in the herbals as ‘gnawing,’ ‘fretting,’ ‘scorching,’ and violently caustic … Given the ingredients of Pertelote's farrago and his sly use of the word ‘venymous,’ Chauntecleer is probably very close to the truth about his wife's incompetence. (Kauffman 47)

This adds another layer of comedy to the tale, as it first validates Chauntecleer in looking down on his wife, then shows them equally matched in what was correct and incorrect about their arguments. Chauntecleer’s dream did come true, but only to a certain extent, as he did not die by the fox; and Pertelote rightly blamed his downfall on his imbalance of humors—which can be extended to his vanity, but her prescription would’ve been the death of him (Kauffman 47).

Antonio López Santos breaks down the elements of the poem: time, space, characters, narrators, and endings (Santos 30) in both The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, comparing their narrative structures. Santos notes the “most effective technique” that Chaucer uses—”time shifting”—and explains the difference between Chaucer’s use of “realistic time” and “mythic time” in both the tales: “Time is reorganized from the psychological perspective of the protagonists and does not alter the narrative logic” (Santos 30).

Santos explains how both the Wife of Bath and the Nun’s Priest present two simultaneous timelines within their respective chapters. Stating that the Wife of Bath’s reality of her situation (being a widow) and her values that she articulates in her prologue are set in “real time” whereas her tale, that combines her ideals and writes them as truth is set in “mythic time”: 

“By ‘real time’ I mean the time in which the widow has to survive hour by hour and day by day and which reflects the hardships of medieval life, especially the tribulations of the lower classes. The mythical time introduces the reveries and the most intimate dreams harbored by the inhabitants of an unhappy world” (Santos 31).

In the real world the Wife of Bath struggles to find love that is both young and good, while, in the mythic world, she can “resolve this dichotomy.” This shows that the “mythical dimension does not serve merely as a framework: on the contrary, it incorporates the central story” (Santos 32).

Santos compares this against The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and his manipulation of time and space to conform to the narrator or characters’ “needs and fantasies” (Santos 32). He explains deeper, describing the “real space” of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale as “filled with real objects and real animals” (Santos 33), contrasted against the vagueness of the “mythical space” or the “fantastic elements such as plants endowed with magical and miraculous powers” that reside in it (Santos 33).

Santos contrasts the Wife of Bath’s use of real and mythical space in her Prologue against the Tale and its use of fantastical elements and stereotypes of traditional narratives, to allow for the expression of the Wife of Bath’s true desires—that is, sovereignty over her husband. So, Santos argues that the Wife of Bath uses real settings in her Prologue to ground the audience but moves the audience into a mythic setting to express her values and desires (Santos 34).

He makes claims on the characters of both chapters, calling the Wife of Bath and Pertelote “undoubtedly flat characters [that] display a univocal archetypal personality,” compared to Chuantecleer and the fox, whom he holds in high regard: “their personality reflects their inner conflicts. They are not mere puppets who illustrate the priest’s moral discourse” and admired how “the variety of linguistic registers in his language – his tones range from the courtly to the confidential – clearly undermines stereotypical representations” (Santos 35). In his attempt to peel back the chaff of the piece, Santos, instead, admires it.

Santos argues Chauntecleer and the fox “are … dynamic characters who change as their situation changes and who, despite their apparent universality, gradually acquire individualized traits, especially through their flaws and inconsistencies” (Santos 40).

He makes it appear as though the Wife of Bath and the witch in her tale are without depth because they are vehicles in the exploration of a wider concept that is women’s struggle within the confines of a patriarchal society. But what he neglects to acknowledge is the complexity and depth within the Wife of Bath’s use of deceit; never does he consider the context of her choices in her “tak[ing] on a different personality” (Santos 38), against her true desires of love and loyalty as expressed in her Tale, nor does he entertain the possibility that her claim of deceit is just another facade to hide the pain she experiences in being an oppressed minority, belittled by her community for both her strong opinions and long line of ex-husbands.

And Chauntecleer is not without fault; he too takes part in enjoying his powerful position in the patriarchy, being the only cock in a barn of sister-wives. He exerts his power over Pertelote by overwhelming her with his extended argument, citing the dreams of other “great men,” and then imposes his sexual desire on her to diffuse the argument altogether. For, how can a wife so agreeable and “compaignable” (l. 2872), refuse her husband of such intimate needs that are intended as a compliment to her? This highlights her only power over him, but still maintains its value, as it holds the power to cause his ruin.

Santos praises Chauntecleer and the fox for having characters that reveal individualized traits, “especially through their flaws and inconsistencies” (Santos 40). But this simple use of dynamic characters only serves to comment on the human condition of being complex, hypocritical creatures.

Santos argues that through Chauntecleer’s voice, the Nun’s Priest is able to convey his own thoughts and desires, and cites a section of the poem where the Nun’s Priest attempts to remove himself from the tale: “Thise been the cokkes wordes, and nat myne; / I kan noon harm of no womman divyne” (l. 3265-66). And in doing so only highlights his awareness of the tale: “At this point in the narrative, the reader has already realized that the narrator (the priest) and the protagonist (Chauntecleer) share similar impulses. Thus, his warning directed to his fellow pilgrims to remain alert to any kind of flattery, and by extension to any kind of temptation, is in fact a piece of advice to himself, and he himself is its first addressee…” (Santos 42).

Santos argues that the oscillation between the character’s voice and narrators voice reveals the narrator’s true personality, “thus, the [Nun’s Priest’s Tale] acquires more than one meaning, especially at the end, when it becomes an ironic commentary that undermines its manifest intention” (Santos 40).

Paul A. Shallers explores Chaucer’s use of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and discusses the moral that many overlook at the end of the tale: “The mockery of the poem is so pervasive that most first-time readers look on the moralistic coda as either perfunctory or ironic” (Shallers 319). Shallers argues that the Nun’s Priest cannot be satirized because there is no portrait of him in the general prologue to connect to his tale and he is “hardly characterized in his prologue, tale, or epilogue” (Shallers 321). He argues, “The poem’s main irony resides in its ingenious pretension to meaning, its direct invitation to ‘take the moral’ where none exists” (Shallers 322).

Shallers notes Chaucer’s blend of bourgeois style in the “French fox cycle” and his use of both exemplum-style writing and Roman de Renart poetry in this piece: “In all likelihood Chaucer effected the central irony of his Nun’s Priest’s Tale by imitating and mixing together the techniques and perspectives of both kinds of animal stories” (Shallers 322).

Chaucer, drawing on the Roman de Renart as a source, reshaped it to accommodate anyone who expected a conventional didactic exemplum. Many of his additions seem to demand allegorical interpretation as they turn our attention to important questions about the human condition (Shallers 327).

Shallers demonstrates how the animal characters of the poem, and their behaviors reflect both animal and human nature. From their descriptions, Chauntecleer and Pertelote are a “recognizable breed of chicken” (Shallers 331), with behavior that reflects their animal nature: “they take dust baths and hunt for kernels of corn; the cock crows at the proper hours and instinctively starts back from the fox” (Shallers 331). But, as Shaller notes, their behavior also reflects humans of a noble kind:

“They are courtly: Chauntecleer sings love songs and melts before his paramour's beautiful red-rimmed eyes; debonaire Pertelote insists upon a husband ‘hardy, wise, and free, …’ (2914-16). Chauntecleer is heroic, strutting about the yard like a ‘grym lioun’ … (2860). And both are wondrously learned, as they demonstrate in their debate” (Shallers 331).

And in their debate, both are so confident in their own knowledge, they refuse to acknowledge the other (Shallers 333):

“The poem emphasizes man's incapacity without insisting upon his insignificance. Chauntecleer, and man, may not deserve material good fortune in the fallen world and possess little or no power to effect it themselves, but they sometimes get it, despite the odds” (Shallers 336).

John Finlayson agrees with Shaller’s argument in his article, “Reading Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale: Mixed genres and multi-layered worlds of illusion.” In his attempts to peel back the chaff of the Nun’s Priest Tale, he finds it to be a “a beast-fable and a mock-romance, mock-epic, mock philosophic, mock exemplum which also mocks its supposed narrator and the uses to which he puts stories” (Finlayson 509).

The representation of both man and animal that Chauntecleer oscillates between allows for multiple layers of interpretation that never fully commit to representing neither animal nor man because of the ambiguity of Chaunteleer’s narrative.

The single, most devastating feature of Chaucer’s art makes his animals indistinguishable from humans at one moment, and a line later, unmistakably animal. This might be Chaucer’s way of allowing us not to have to identify ourselves at all points with Chauntecleer, or equally it might be his way of making us see that we are closer to the Golden Spangled Hamburg than it is comfortable to acknowledge. The Nun’s Priest and Chaucer appear to leave it up to us to decide. (Finlayson 509)

Finlayson agrees with Santos’ perspective on the Nun’s Priest’s Tale having a “multiplicity of perspectives on the human condition” (Finlayson 493), and agrees on the tale drawing out the Nun’s Priest’s true personality, but believes the poem doesn’t have much to consider beyond being a “comic social satire” (Finlayson 493):

“The comedy lies initially in the ludicrousness of a cock seeing himself as a learned, heroic figure, like a human, but the satiric bite is in the close identity of man and cock … The mockery here, thus, is triple: of the inappropriate subject, of the epic literary self-imaging of man, and of Man’s overweening sense of self-importance” (Finlayson 497).

So, the challenge of finding meaning—removing the “chaff”—could just be Chaucer taking a jab at his own work by satisfying the narrative structure with a moral, then challenging the readers to find the true moral, when there is, in fact, no intended "true" moral. And in sending so many critics on a wild goose chase for meaning, Chaucer successfully ridicules all those that take on his challenge as they prove his point of both the audience’s need to identify with the hero and their willingness to forgive even non-human qualities, that only serves to highlight their assumed self-importance.

“Chaucer, thus, takes a relatively simple, but didactic, genre and within the short space of 50 lines or less, has introduced a variety of perspectives (and, therefore, possible meanings)” (Finlayson 497), it would be comical to assume the existence of one true meaning.

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, edited by David Lawton, W. W. Norton & Company, 2020, p. 441

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, edited by David Lawton, W. W. Norton & Company, 2020, p. 183.

Finlayson, John. “Reading Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale: Mixed Genres and Multi-layered Worlds of Illusion.” Short Story Theories: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective. Brill | Rodopi, 2012. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=495492&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Hitt, Ralph E. “Chauntecleer As Mock-Hero of The ‘Nun's Priest's Tale.’” The Mississippi Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 2, 1959, pp. 75–85. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26473177. Accessed 6 May 2020.

Kauffman, Corinne E. “Dame Pertelote's Parlous Parle.” The Chaucer Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 1969, pp. 41–48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25093106. Accessed 8 May 2020.

Santos, Antonio López. "The Paratactic Structure in the Canterbury Tales: Two Antecedents of the Modern Short Story.” Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Rodopi, 2012. ttps://doi.org/10.1163/9789401208390_003 Web.

Shallers, A. Paul. “The ‘Nun's Priest's Tale’: An Ironic Exemplum.” ELH, vol. 42, no. 3, 1975, pp. 319–337. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2872707. Accessed 6 May 2020.

Fairfield University

Dr. Robert Epstein

EN 0311: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales