 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2020) |
"The Nun's Priest's Tale" (Middle English: The Nonnes Preestes Tale of the Cok and Hen, Chauntecleer and Pertelote [1] ) is one of The Canterbury Tales by the Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in the 1390s, it is a beast fable and mock epic based on an incident in the Reynard cycle. The story of Chanticleer and the Fox became further popularised in Britain through this means.
The narrative of 695-lines includes a prologue and an epilogue. [2] The prologue links the story with the previous Monk's Tale, a series of short accounts of toppled despots, criminals and fallen heroes, which prompts an interruption from the knight. The host upholds the knight's complaint and orders the monk to change his story. The monk refuses, saying he has no lust to pleye, and so the Host calls on the Nun's Priest to give the next tale. There is no substantial depiction of this character in Chaucer's "General Prologue", but in the tale's epilogue the Host is moved to give a highly approving portrait which highlights his great physical strength and presence.
The fable concerns a world of talking animals who reflect both human perception and fallacy. Its protagonist is Chauntecleer, a proud cock (rooster) who dreams of his approaching doom in the form of a fox. Frightened, he awakens Pertelote, the chief favourite among his seven wives. She assures him that he only suffers from indigestion and chides him for paying heed to a simple dream. Chauntecleer recounts stories of prophets who foresaw their deaths, dreams that came true, and dreams that were more profound (for instance, Cicero's account of the Dream of Scipio ). Chauntecleer is comforted and proceeds to greet a new day. Unfortunately for Chauntecleer, his own dream was also correct. A col-fox, ful of sly iniquitee (line 3215), who had previously tricked Chauntecleer's father and mother to their downfall, lies in wait for him in a bed of wortes.
When Chauntecleer spots this daun Russell (line 3334), [3] the fox plays to his prey's inflated ego and overcomes the cock's instinct to escape by insisting he would love to hear Chauntecleer crow just as his amazing father did, standing on tiptoe with neck outstretched and eyes closed. When the cock does so, he is promptly snatched from the yard in the fox's jaws and slung over his back. As the fox flees through the forest, with the entire barnyard giving chase, the captured Chauntecleer suggests that he should pause to tell his pursuers to give up. The predator's own pride is now his undoing: as the fox opens his mouth to taunt his pursuers, Chauntecleer escapes from his jaws and flies into the nearest tree. The fox tries in vain to convince the wary rooster of his repentance; it now prefers the safety of the tree and refuses to fall for the same trick a second time.
The Nun's Priest is characterised by the way that he elaborates his slender tale with epic parallels drawn from ancient history and chivalry, giving a display of learning which, in the context of the story and its cast, can only be comic and ironic. But in contrast, the description of the poor widow and the chicken yard of her country cottage with which the tale opens is true to life and has been quoted as authentic in discussions of the living conditions of the mediaeval peasant. [4] [5] By way of conclusion, the Nun's Priest goes on to reconcile the sophistication of his courtly performance with the simplicity of the tale within the framing narrative by admonishing the audience to be careful of reckless decisions and of truste on flaterye.
Robert Henryson used Chaucer's tale as a source for his Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe , the third poem in his Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian , composed in or around the 1480s. Later, the poet John Dryden adapted the tale into more comprehensible modern language under the title of The Cock and the Fox (1700). In 2007, the playwright Dougie Blaxland wrote a comic verse play Chauntecleer and Pertelotte, roughly based on the Nun's Priest's Tale. [6]
Barbara Cooney's adaptation for children with her own illustrations, Chanticleer and the Fox , won the Caldecott Medal in 1959. Another illustrated edition of the tale won the 1992 Kerlan Award. This was Chanticleer and the Fox – A Chaucerian Tale (1991), written by Fulton Roberts with Marc Davis' drawings for a Disney cartoon that was never completed. [7]
Among musical settings have been Gordon Jacob's The Nun's Priest's Tale (1951) and the similarly titled choral setting by Ross Lee Finney. [8] Another American adaptation was Seymour Barab's comic opera Chanticleer. [9] In the UK Michael Hurd set the tale as Rooster Rag, a pop cantata for children (1976). [10]
A full-length musical stage adaptation of The Canterbury Tales , composed of the Prologue, Epilogue, The Nun's Priest's Tale, and four other tales, was presented at the Phoenix Theatre, London on 21 March 1968, with music by Richard Hill & John Hawkins, lyrics by Nevill Coghill, and original concept, book, and direction by Martin Starkie. The Nun's Priest's Tale section was excluded from the original 1969 Broadway production, though reinstated in the 1970 US tour.
This annotated bibliography is a record of all editions, translations, and scholarship written on The Monk's Tale and the Nun's Priest's Tale in the twentieth century with a view to revisiting the former and creating a comprehensive scholarly view of the latter.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
"The Parson's Tale" seems, from the evidence of its prologue, to have been intended as the final tale of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetic cycle The Canterbury Tales. The "tale", which is the longest of all the surviving contributions by Chaucer's pilgrims, is in fact neither a story nor a poem, but a long and unrelieved prose treatise on penance. Critics and readers are generally unclear what rhetorical effect Chaucer may have intended by ending his cycle in this unlikely, extra-generic fashion.
"The Miller's Tale" is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1380s–1390s), told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" "The Knight's Tale". The Miller's Prologue is the first "quite" that occurs in the tales.
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, and evidence in the manuscripts suggests that although she was first assigned a different, plainer tale—perhaps the one told by the Shipman—she received her present tale as her significance increased. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters these are also the names of her 'gossib', whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout The Canterbury Tales.
"The Cook's Tale" is one of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It breaks off after 58 lines and was presumably never finished, although some scholars argue that Chaucer deliberately left the tale unfinished. The story starts telling of an apprentice named Perkyn who is fond of drinking and dancing. Perkyn is released by his master and moves in with a friend who also loves to drink, and whose wife is a shopkeeper whose real occupation is that of a prostitute.
"The Franklin's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It focuses on issues of providence, truth, generosity and gentillesse in human relationships.
Nigel de Longchamps, also known as Nigel Wireker,, Neel de Longchamps, or Nigel of Canterbury, was an Anglo-Norman satirist and poet of the late twelfth century, writing in Latin. He is known to have been a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, from 1186 to 1193, and perhaps earlier.
The General Prologue is the first part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves. The Prologue is arguably the most familiar section of The Canterbury Tales, depicting traffic between places, languages and cultures as well as introducing and describing the pilgrims who will narrate the tales.
Chanticleer may refer to:
"The Manciple's Tale" is part of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It tends to appear near the end of most manuscripts of the poem, and the prologue to the final tale, "The Parson's Tale", makes it clear it was intended as the penultimate story in the collection. The Manciple, a purchasing agent for a law court, tells a fable about Phoebus Apollo and his pet crow, which is both an origin myth explaining the crow's black feathers and a moralistic injunction against gossip.
"The Clerk's Tale" is the first tale of Group E in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It is preceded by The Summoner's Tale and followed by The Merchant's Tale. The Clerk of Oxenford is a student of what would nowadays be considered philosophy or theology. He tells the tale of Griselda, a young woman whose husband tests her loyalty in a series of cruel torments that recall the biblical Book of Job.
Peter Goodall is an Australian academic and author. In the mid-2000s he was Acting Dean of Humanities at Macquarie University in the absence of Dean Christina Slade. His substantive position was Deputy Dean of Humanities and Acting Head of the Politics and International Relations Department. By 2009 he had transferred to the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba campus where he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts.
Saint Kenelm was an Anglo-Saxon saint, venerated throughout medieval England, and mentioned in the Canterbury Tales. William of Malmesbury, writing in the 12th century, recounted that "there was no place in England to which more pilgrims travelled than to Winchcombe on Kenelm's feast day".
"The Shipman's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Summoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Monk's Tale" is one of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Book of the Dun Cow (1978) is a fantasy novel by Walter Wangerin Jr. It is loosely based upon the beast fable of Chanticleer and the Fox adapted from the story of "The Nun's Priest's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It has two sequels.
Chanticleer and the Fox is a fable that dates from the Middle Ages. Though it can be compared to Aesop's fable of The Fox and the Crow, it is of more recent origin. The story became well known in Europe because of its connection with several popular literary works and was eventually recorded in collections of Aesop's Fables from the time of Heinrich Steinhowel and William Caxton onwards. It is numbered 562 in the Perry Index.
"The Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe" is Fabill 3 of Robert Henryson's cycle of thirteen Morall Fabillis composed in Scotland in the later fifteenth century. It is the first of the fable in the poem to be based on Reynardian and beast epic sources rather than on any strictly Aesopian original, although the closest match from Aesop might be The Dog, the Cock and the Fox.
