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The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Canterbury Tales, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Satire
Competition
Courtly Love and Sexual Desire
Friendship and Company
Church Corruption
Writing and Authorship
Summary
Analysis
The Host praises the Nun’s Priest for his merry tale. He says that the Priest would have made for an excellent rooster, with his strong muscles and great neck––all he would need would be hens, which, of course, he cannot have, being a member of the clergy.
In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, the animals act like humans, and after the tale, the Host turns the tables and compares the Priest himself to the rooster hero of his story, while also getting in a nice dig about how the clergy are bound to lives of chastity.
Themes
