An Ironic Monkish Allusion: Chaucer's Learned Audience in 'The Nun's Priest's Tale'

Author / Editor
Thomas, Paul R.

Title
An Ironic Monkish Allusion: Chaucer's Learned Audience in 'The Nun's Priest's Tale'

Published
Encyclia 59 (1985, for 1982): 45-52

Description
Chaucer's learned audience would have seen great irony in Daun Russell's allusion to the cock in Nigel de Longchamps's "Speculum stultorum": that cock, unlike Chauntecleer, had the intelligence to refuse to crow. The textual Chauntecleer is temporarily outsmarted by the fox, another reading beast.

Chaucer Subjects
Nun's Priest and His Tale.