The Authority of Fable: Allegory and Irony in the 'Nun's Priest's Tale'

Author / Editor
Scanlon, Larry.

Title
The Authority of Fable: Allegory and Irony in the 'Nun's Priest's Tale'

Published
Exemplaria 1 (1989): 43-68.

Description
The central question for NPT is not whether it is allegorical or ironic but how it uses allegory and irony to refigure its own past. This tale was composed for a court audience at the beginning of a new vernacular tradition. What kind of authority does it extract from the tradition of ecclesiastical exegesis? Chaucer's "authority is critical yet profoundly conservative, ironically self-conscious yet deferential to the status quo."

Chaucer Subjects
Nun's Priest and His Tale.