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Unit 17: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-IX

Pertelote’s. The two fowl have a fulfilling sexual relationship-and the sex occurs as a pleasurable, Notes
uncomplicated end in itself, a stark contrast with the sexual transactions of the Franklin and the
Wife of Bath’s tales. In one sense, then, the animals are not so bestial.
Interpreting dreams, incidentally, is a favorite theme of Middle English literature, and it frames a
whole genre of poetry, known as “dream poems”, of which Chaucer himself wrote several (including
the Book of the Duchess and the House of Fame). Dreams and text are closely intertwined, and–
even in this tale–the way in which a dream poem juxtaposes the text of the dream with the text of
the story is clear. Is a dream any more or less real than a tale? If we can take a moral from a tale, can
we take one from a dream?
This tale is in many ways a return to the ground, a return to basics. We start with a poor widow, and
a dusty yard-a setting far removed from the high-culture classical tragedies of the Monk. Moreover,
the tale keeps emphasizing anality and bottoms - in Chaunticleer’s two examples of dreams-coming-
true, a dung cart and a breaking ship’s “bottom” are the hinge of the story, and Pertelote’s advice to
Chaunticleer is to take some “laxatyf” to clear out his humours. There is a good-natured sense of
groundedness about this tale, a return – after the dark run of Monk (interrupted), before him the
punishing Melibee (and interrupted Sir Thopas) and bitter Prioress–to the humour and warmth of
the early tales. Yet its theme also darkly foreshadows the end of the tale-telling project itself.
If the tale, taken simplistically, does endorse prophetic dreams (though, as mentioned above, a look
at the animal nature of its characters might be seen as parodying the whole concept!) then what is
the “moral” that the narrator wants us to take away at the end? As ever, this isn’t totally clear. Yet
one thing it might be is the importance of speaking or not speaking.
One of the things that makes Chaunticleer the morally-representative chicken a problem is the fact
that he can speak and argue with his wife on the one hand, yet cry “cok! Cok!” when he sees a grain
on the floor. He is both chicken and human, rather like Chaucer writes as both himself and as Nun’s
Priest. The tale, however, is structured by people knowing when to speak and not knowing when to
speak: Pertelote speaks out to wake Chaunticleer from his dream, Chaunticleer foolishly opens his
mouth to sing for the fox when he is captured, and it is Chaunticleer’s final visitation of the trap that
he himself fell into on the fox which causes him in turn to open his mouth–and let Chaunticleer go.
Know when you should “jangle” (chatter) and know when to hold your peace.
It is a theme of course which points a sharp finger at the whole idea of a beast fable-the whole genre,
we might argue, resting on the writer precisely ignoring the correct moments to have a character
speak or not speak; and it also is a dangerous moral for the Tales as a whole. In a work of literature
that constantly apes orality, the injunction to shut up is a serious one–and, as a comparison of the
Nun’s Priest’s Tale to the Manciple’s Tale reveals–one very much in Chaucer’s mind at the very end
of the Canterbury project.

17.3 The Second Nun’s Tale

17.3.1 The Second Nun’s Prologue

The tale, written in rime royal, begins with an invocation for people to avoid sin and avoid the devil,
and then a formal invocation to the Virgin Mary.
There then follows an interpretation of the name of St. Cecilia, the subject of the Second Nun’s Tale:
in English, the narrator tells us, her name might be expounded as “heaven’s lily”. The lily might
represent the chasteness of Cecilia, or indeed, her white honesty. Or, perhaps her name would be
best read as “the way toward understanding”, because she was an excellent teacher, or perhaps a
conjoined version of “heaven” and “Lia”. Cecilia, the prologue concludes, was swift and busy forever
in doing good works.

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