November 18, 2014 Happy Tuesday!

November 18, 2014 Have you ever been in a public place and found yourself watching people and wondering/guessing what their story is? Why do you think people enjoy this activity (people watching)? Tell a story about something you witnessed once while watching people. Five sentences.

November 18, 2014  Class starter  Chaucer notes  Begin reading the “Prologue” to the Canterbury Tales, p. 94.

November 18, 2014  Geoffrey Chaucer - England’s first great writer  He wrote in Middle English, in an age when French was the national language and Latin was spoken in courts of law or government dealings  Chaucer was one of the first writers to show that English could be a respectable literary language.  He traveled a lot and thus had a wide understanding of many different types of people.

November 18, 2014  Middle Ages social structure based on 3 “estates” (social classes). MEN :  Nobility – aristocracy concerned with ruling and defending the political system  Church – concerned with spiritual welfare of the church and people  Commoners – everyone else; concerned with work and everyday needs of everyone.

November 18, 2014  Men were born into either the nobility or the peasantry (commoners); they could BECOME clergy. Note that these are gender specific – a man’s place was determined by what he did for a living as much as by the social class into which he is born

November 18, 2014  WOMEN:  Virgins: (girls and young unmarried women); assumed virtuous and highly idealized, often to the point of satire.  Wives  Widows  Like men, medieval women were born into the second or third estate, and might eventually become members of the first (by entering the Church, willingly or not).

November 18, 2014  It is interesting to note that a woman's estate was determined not by her profession but by her sexual activity: she is defined in relationship to the men with whom she sleeps, used to sleep, or never has slept.

November 18, 2014  By Chaucer’s time, these traditional three were modified by a growing middle class (mercantile class) and a subdivision of the church class, the intellectuals.  This pilgrimage (journey undertaken for spiritual reasons) serves as a device to bring these estates together for the purpose of Chaucer’s social commentary.

November 18, 2014  Concepts in Canterbury tales:  Frame story – a plot structure that includes the telling of a story within a story.  Satire – a form of social commentary that uses exaggeration and ridicule to foster social change.  C. Characterization – the methods a writer uses to reveal the values and personalities of his or her characters. A writer may make explicit statements about a character (direct) or may reveal a character through well-chosen words, thoughts, and actions (indirect).