Chaucer's "The Priest's Tale of the Nuns" is at once a fable, a tale of courtly love, and a satire that pokes fun at the fables and traditions of 'courtly love. To this end, Chaucer uses several stylistic techniques involving both framing and content. The tale begins and ends with "a poor widwe somdeel stape in age" (line 1), but most of the content involves not the widow but the animals on her farm, particularly an arrogant rooster named Chauntecleer. The first mention of the main character comes only in the twenty-ninth line, after twenty-eight lines of minute description of the widow and the farm. Spending a lot of time on details slows down the plot of the story; this plot is further elaborated by the nun's priest's constant interjections, which are mostly spoken in very formal language. Chaucer's use of abundant narrative intrusion and profuse attention to detail creates a story in which plot is marginalized and traditional structures broken, the result of which is an environment in which the absurdity of fable and Courtly love can easily come to light. The priest's tale of the nuns begins with the mention of a poor old widow who lives in a cottage. Most of the first page of the story deals with the details of this woman's life. Only after every detail of his person and farm is revealed is the main character, Chauntecleer, introduced. The story also brings the focus back to the woman at the end. The framing of the story is such that the events of the story all occur within the confines of this woman's life. This clever framing does not allow the reader to adequately understand the characters of the story; they are, at every moment in history, less than human. The high language and dialogue... middle of the paper... so, by belittling Chauntecleer, Chaucer takes pains to show the idiocy of deriving morals from a tale about animals, which lacks a moral reason. Long-winded and ultimately meaningless paragraphs of minute detail only further the portrayal of the barnyard events as commonplace, and the narrator's formal speech interjections overapply high allusion and upper-class feeling, emphasizing the irony in paying close attention to the story of an ordinary day in the life of a farm animal. Using these rhetorical and stylistic tactics, Chaucer cleverly mocks the writing styles and conventions of his time, creating a story that at first glance is highly traditional but upon closer examination highly satirical. Work cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Canterbury Tales." The progress of nonsense. Ed. Doug O'Keefe. Evanston: Northwestern University, 2006.