The “General Prologue” provides us with no evidence regarding the character of the Nun's Priest. Only in the prologue of his story can we finally glimpse who he might be, albeit in a rather obtuse way. As Harry Bailey rather disdainfully observes: “Tell us how can our hertes glade./Be merry, though he ride a jade” (p.235, ll2811-2812). I say this with caution because much criticism has surrounded the supposed character of the nuns' priest, his role in the tale, and his relationship to the Canterbury Tales as a whole. An example, in my opinion, of an unsatisfactory read is exemplified by Arthur Broes' 1963 article "Chaucer's Disgruntled Cleric: The Nun's Priest's Tale." Broes claims that the nun's priest is a “learned clergyman” (Broes 162) who attacks her ecclesiastical superiors, particularly the prioress, for their perceived spiritual failures. Although one can clearly find allusions to the Prioress (line 2835 would be a very poignant example, "No deyntee morsel pass thurgh hir throte") in the tale, I nevertheless think that Broes' reading is very one-sided. Indeed, Derek Pearsall would seem to agree. Pearsall's 1984 Variorum is a valuable source of information on the tale's sources and analogues, as well as a fairly thorough summary of critical approaches to the tale. Regarding the character of the nun's priest and the question of a so-called "dramatic" reading of the text, Pearsall believes that there are two main critical camps: those who argue that the character of the nun's priest can be ascertained from textual evidence thus influencing any reading of the story, while others, perhaps represented by Robert Kilburn Root, support the following position: “Neither in the General Prologue nor in the links that... in the middle of the paper... spoke well of the concept of containment, or burial, in the story and in literary texts. This act, created consciously or not, implies a sense of need for reflection, an island of contemplation, but at the same time this containment threatens the inevitable need for progress. Both in the "Knight's Tale" and in the "Nuns' Priest's Tale" we find ourselves faced with insular worlds whose functioning is a mystery, and in fact, even if we can be witnesses of their functioning, we remain strangers to the cultural codes buried in the inside the enclosure. Chaucer seems to be aware of this. The Knight leads us forward, but always looks back. The Priest of the Nun reminds us that we must always look forward, beyond our seclusion. Ultimately, Chaucer left us a tale, to borrow Stephen Greenblatt's term, of "resonance and wonder" that reverberates across space and time..