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Unit 18: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-X

Analysis Notes
There is something hugely destructive–and self-destructive–about this tale, and particularly the way
it takes the god of poetry, himself a plausible representative for the whole idea of the Tales themselves,
and turns him into a petty, jealous murderer. The Manciple’s Tale is almost painfully brief-not given
to flights of fancy, we are given the simple information–jealous husband, unfaithful wife, talking
crow, and then destruction, of wife, of crow, and of poetry.
The Manciple’s Tale is also a cousin, though a darker cousin, of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, and it seems
likely, at least, at first, that a tale about a talking crow and the mythical god of poetry will be another
fantastical beast fable–the genre leads us to expect the happily ending exploits of another
Chaunticleer. Yet what actually happens is a bitter shift in tone-the happy, metaphorical beginning
of the tale falls through into a painful reality. The god of poetry is a jealous human, and the white-
feathered beautiful-voiced talking crow becomes the black, hollow-voiced harbinger of doom of
reality. The tale brings the reader back to earth with a bump, and its reminder is clear: know when
to fall silent. Know when not to speak, when not to tell.
And “tell” is an appropriate verb to raise-like Chaucer himself, the crow can counterfeit the speech
of every man. The crow, in other words, is a veritable Canterbury poet himself-and what this tale
teaches him, through physical suffering, is that some subjects are simply not to be told. Chaucer, in
the Retraction, raises the worry that the Tales are sinful or blasphemous, and the moral “hold your
tongue” could not simply be the message of the final Tales, but a thought a nervously religious
Chaucer was increasingly coming to find in his own mind. Telling, in other words, has its limits-
and it is better to stop before there are real consequences to it. As the final real “tale” (discounting
the Parson’s sermon) of the Tales, it makes for a bleak, but unmistakable end.

18.3 The Parson’s Tale and Chaucer’s Retraction

18.3.1 The Parson’s Prologue

By the time the Manciple’s tale had finished, the sun had set low in the sky. The Host, pronouncing
his initial degree fulfilled, turns to the Parson to “knytte up wel a greet mateere” (conclude a huge
matter) and tell the final tale. The Parson answered that he would tell no fable–for Paul, writing to
Timothy, reproved people who turned aside from the truth and told fables and other such
wretchedness.
What the Parson promises is morality and virtuous matters-and jokes that he does not know of the
alliterative poetry tradition of the South. He leaves his tale, he says, to clerks, for he himself is not
“textueel”. Everyone agreed that it was the best way to end the project, and asked the Host to give
the Parson the instruction to tell the final tale. The Host did so, hasting the Parson to tell his tale
before the sun went down.

18.3.2 The Parson’s Tale Text

The Parson’s tale is not actually a tale as such, but a lengthy medieval sermon on the subject of
penitence. The first part of his sermon defines the three parts of penitence–contrition, confession
and satisfaction, and expounds at length (with several biblical examples) the causes of the contrition.
The second part of the sermon considers confession, which is the truthful revelation of the sinner’s
sin to the priest. Sin is then explained as the eventual product of a struggle between the body and
soul for dominance of a person–and therefore there are two types of sin: venial (minor, smaller sins)
and deadly (serious sins).
The third part of the sermon considers each of the seven deadly sins as branches of a tree of which
Pride is the trunk. Pride is the worst of the sins, because the other sins (Ire, Envy, Sloth, Avarice,
Gluttony and Lechery) all stem from Pride. Each sin’s description is followed by its spiritual remedy–
and the Parson states the rules for oral confession.

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