Chaucer's Monk's Tale and Nun's Priest's Tale

Of all the stories that comprise The Canterbury Tales, certain ones have attracted more attention than others in terms of literary scholarship and canonization. The Monk's Tale , for instance, was popular in the decades after Chaucer's death, but has since suffered critical neglect, particularly in the twentieth century. The opposite has occurred with the Nun's Priest's Tale , which has long been one of the most popular and widely discussed of the tales, cited by some critics as the most essenti