Chapter 25 - Animals in Chaucer

Summary

Animals are to be found in many places and modes in Chaucer’s work. They feature as similes (Palamon and Arcite in the Knight’s Tale are compared to lion, tiger and boar), star in fables (the Nun’s Priest’s Tale) or are simply themselves, like the cow of the lyric Truth, or the spider of the Treatise on the Astrolable. Heeding Lisa Kiser’s caution that animals in literature risk being absorbed into the human mindset, this essay explores some of the animals (and insects) found in Chaucer, and, by reading them alongside Isidore of Seville’s definition of ‘beast’, seeks to demonstrate how they resist such absorption and instead steer our attention to aspects of daily life or concepts we are liable to overlook. Animals may act as vehicles for our thoughts, but sometimes they carry us to places we did not consciously intend.