The Nun's Priest's Tale
A Fable with Humor and Hidden Meaning.
The Nun's Priest's Tale can be seen as a fable, a short story with a moral lesson, where animals act like humans. In this tale, the main characters are a rooster, Chanticleer, and a fox. The lesson is simple: “Don’t trust flattery!” The rooster falls for the fox's sweet words, which leads to trouble.
Chaucer makes the story funny and ironic by giving the rooster a grand way of speaking, like a hero in an epic. He even mentions Cicero, a famous writer, in a serious tone, but the subject is just a rooster dreaming, showing the humor and silliness of the situation. This makes the story "mock-heroic," using a grand style for a trivial subject.
Chaucer also reminds us throughout the poem that the characters are animals. Normally, in fables, animals act like humans, but in this tale, they also act like heroes, which makes it even more ridiculous.
There is also an allegorical side to the story. The rooster represents the secular clergy, while the fox symbolizes a Franciscan friar. Chaucer uses this conflict to criticize the friars, reflecting the tensions between the church and friars in the 13th and 14th centuries.