1. November 18, 2014 Happy Tuesday!

2. 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.

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

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

7. 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).

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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).