Geoffrey Chaucer, The Nun's Priest's Tale

Helen Cooper (University of Cambridge)
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The Nuns’s Priest’s Tale is the concluding tale of the largest fragment in the Canterbury Tales, fragment VII (2821-3446; B2 4011-4636 in the old “Chaucer Society” numbering still found, with no manuscript authority, in some editions). The “fragments” of the Tales are made up of stories connected by linking passages that can be firmly ascribed to Chaucer; later scribes or editors sometimes furnished further linking passages of their own, so making non-authentic further connections between tales. The links are normally given editorial headings as prologues to the next tale though they may well serve more as epilogues to the previous story. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is unusual in that …

2035 words

Citation: Cooper, Helen. "The Nun's Priest's Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 October 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19960, accessed 29 March 2024.]

19960 The Nun's Priest's Tale 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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