A rooster, seven hens, and a fox O Deborah, flowre of cookie-makeres all! Yblissed be thow, whatever the bifalle! O Deborah, of cookie-makeres the crowne! Yblissed be thow, bothe in and owte of towne!

  Animal fable important since Aesop, the mythical Greek founder of the genre in c. 7 th century BCE  Always associated with early education. Used to teach reading and basic literary interpretation  Thus a “low” form to contrast with the Monk’s “high” form, tragedy, and further tease the nuns (the Prioress’s Tale is also about a primary school). There has to be a fable in the Tales  Fables have moralities, they ask to be read ethically  But animals, even talking animals, don’t necessarily behave ethically. They tend to be associated, rather, with appetites, unbridled desires for basic needs: sex, food, etc.  Thus fables are often comic, playing on this incongruity, and can also be dark  Chaucer’s fable is not dark, but ludicrous. Nonetheless, it acknowledges the potential for darkness in its many digressions Fable

 Henryson’s Fables The greatest series of fables from early England and perhaps from anywhere are those by Robert Henryson, a Scottish poet of the late fifteenth century in the Chaucerian tradition

  The Nun’s Priest’s fable is ludicrously long. Fables are usually very short, only a few lines. This contrasts with the Monk’s Tale, where the tragedies are too short  It’s also ludicrously learned and full of digressions: Chauntecleer and Pertolete exchange learned comments on the meaning of dreams, including a number of exempla  Once that action takes place, when the fox grabs the rooster, the narrator moves into the high, epic style, with many apostrophes (“O … “), more suitable for the tragedies told in the Monk’s Tale  The narrator also gets involved in a learned digression on freewill  In these apostrophes, the narrator is imitating the kinds of exercises school-children learned after they had done with fables, rhetorical set-pieces. Chaucer alludes directly to a key medieval text-book, Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s (brilliant) Poetria nova  The fable has two trite morals pronounced by the fox and the rooster. However, it ends with the Nun’s Priest telling us to “take the fruit and throw away the chaff” of the tale, which he claims is a deeply serious allegory. Chaucer’s Fable

  Chaucer’s poetry is designed to be heard, with or without book (it’s ok, probably useful, to follow along)  All his sentences are clear. All his transitions are exceptionally clear (since you can’t go backwards in a reading). He is often conversational and as often oratorical, requiring the reader to perform different roles but also to perform that of the narrator, who is a real character in the tale  However, Chaucer assumes we have the ability to retain structures we have heard, such as the several points of an argument, and know when each point is being answered  He also assumes we can follow digressions that work in several stages (a speech leads to an argument leads to an exemplum )  This is still how forensic (courtroom) oratory works  Our challenge is not to get lost in these verbal structures Listening to reading aloud

 Comic devices you don’t want to miss Whole tale is a ‘gag’, like a stand-up routine Chickens behaving like people. Chickens learnedly discoursing on matters of high importance. Chickens making us forget they are not human. But also chickens behaving like chickens while not quite stopping being people. Our participation as a result in: chicken aesthetics (Chauntecleer’s splendor, Pertelote’s beauty) a chicken’s sense of space and time ( sleeping on a perch, growing up quickly) chicken sexual practices (where the numbers seven and twenty both come up) The convent analogy. The nun’s priest is like a rooster among the chickens, surrounded by women, who employ him. This explains his charm, his diffidence, also the Host’s jokes about his manliness. Also the opening with the poor widow’s farm: convents were notoriously poorer than monasteries

 1. Exposition:  2. Chauntecleer’s Dream  A. Narration of the dream ( )  B. Pertolete’s Reaction  i. You coward! ( )  ii. Dreams as response to imbalance in the body’s humors and/or indigestion. Need for Chauntecleer to purge ( )  Cites Cato (Distichs of Cato, elementary school text)  C. Chauntecleer’s Response (with long digressions)  i. Dreams as prophetic  Exemplum : the murder seen in a dream ( )  Exemplum 2 : the shipwreck foretold in a dream ( )  Exemplum 3: St. Kenelm’s murder foretold in a dream, and a host more examples from Macrobius (“Dream of Scipio”), Daniel, Exodus, the story of Troy, and so on ( )  Response to Pertolete’s medical prescription ( )  D. The sexiness of winning an argument ( ) Structure 1: the set-up

 3. Setting: May 3, sun in Taurus, mid-morning, followed by intimation of tragedy ( ) 4. The Fox as Antagonist A. Introduction of fox ( ) B. Apostrophe against the fox as Judas and other traitors and digression on freewill ( ) C. Hastily suppressed attack on women as bad counselors ( ) 5. Conversation between Chauntecleer and the Fox, culminating in the Fox grabbing Chauntercleer ( ) 6. Apostrophes against Destiny etc. from the Nun’s Priest ( ) 7. The Chase ( ) 8. The Denouement ( ) 9. The Moral ( ) Structure 2: the action