Reading The Nun's Priest's Tale through the Dream Vision Genre

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale has long been considered an intricate mix of genres ranging from fable to epic. Placing this tale alongside Chaucer’s works in the dream vision genre and the critical analyses pertaining to them, The Nun’s Priest’s Tale can be read as reconstructing the world of a dream vision beginning with Chauntecleer’s vision of the unidentified fox. The tale reconsiders each element of the dream vision genre in its reconstruction, interweaving theological and philosophical topics alongside accounts of bodily experience. Though viewing Chauntecleer’s vision through this genre serves to later validate his vision as prophetic, this lens also allows the physical aspects of the vision and its fulfillment through Chauntecleer’s pursuit by the fox, to be included as part of his educative experience. The conflicts between Chauntecleer and his chief wife Pertelote concerning their philosophical and practical engagements with the vision allow for further reexaminations of the tale through the dream vision genre’s focus on theological explorations and physical encounters. Granting a more equal consideration of both interpretations, this reading allows Pertelote’s interpretation not to be altogether dismissed as invalid and presents a reexamination of Chaucer’s explorations of subjectivity and objectivity.

https://athenacommons.muw.edu/urc/2021/humanities/2