THE THREE STATES (The Canterbury Tales)

(Dr. Debora B. Schwartz)
(English Department, California Polytechnic State University)


When a text is geared toward a particular class of people, it is said to be written ad status, Latin for "to the estate," that is, to everyone in a particular social category (or "estate"). The idea of the "estates" is important to the social structure of the Middle Ages.
Feudal society was traditionally divided into three "estates" (roughly equivalent to social classes). The "First Estate" was the Church (clergy = those who prayed). The "Second Estate" was the Nobility (those who fought = knights). It was common for aristocrats to enter the Church and thus shift from the second to the first estate. The "Third Estate" was the Peasantry (everyone else, at least under feudalism: those who produced the food which supported those who prayed and those who fought, the members of the First and Second Estates). Note that the categories defined by these traditional "estates" are gender specific: they are defined by what a man does for a living as much as by the social class into which he was born.
Women were classified differently. 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). But women were also categorized according to three specifically "feminine estates": virgin, wife and widow. 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.
The rigid division of society into the three traditional "estates" begins to break down in the later Middle Ages. By the time of Chaucer (mid-fourteenth century), we see the rise of a mercantile class (mercantile = merchants) in the cities, i.e. an urban middle-class, as well as a new subdivision of the clergy: intellectuals trained in literature and writing (and thus "clerics" like Chaucer's Clerk), but who were not destined to a professional career within the Church. Chaucer arguably belonged to both of these new categories. What biographical details may have made him particularly sensitive to issues of social class? (Review the lyric poem "Gentilesse"; what does the line repeated at the end of each verse have to say about this issue?)
In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer is highly conscious of the social divisions known as the "Estates." While the genre of the Canterbury Tales as a whole is a "frame narrative," the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is an example of "Estates Satire," a genre which satirizes the abuses that occur within the three traditional Estates (in particular, the Clergy). In her personal Prologue, the Wife of Bath argues forcefully that the feminine estates of "wife" and "widow" should be valued as much as that of "virgin."
The characters described by Chaucer in the General Prologue have gathered at the Inn in Southwark prior to departing on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. What is the usefulness of this situation to Chaucer? (What sort of people went on pilgrimages?) From what walks of life do the pilgrims come? Note that Chaucer takes care to include representatives of all three traditional "male"and "female" estates (the Wife of Bath represents both "wife" and "widow," while the Prioress, a nun, is presumably a virgin). Look for an idealized portrait of each of the traditional (male) "estates." Which portraits are satirical? Note also the portraits representing two new groups that were gaining prominence in the fourteenth century: the middle class and intellectuals (people trained as "clerks" -- i.e."clerics" -- but who are not destined to a career within the church). Which pilgrims represent these new classes?
Pay attention to the pilgrim portraits. As you read the various portraits, pick out a key word or phrase to describe each pilgrim. Note that physical details frequently provide insight into character (in medieval times, physiognomy was believed to be revealing of character -- see also the concept of the four humors). What do the descriptions reveal about the pilgrims' characters? Which figures are painted in a positive or in a negative light?
Pay particular attention to the portraits of religious figures (Prioress, Monk, Friar, Parson, Pardoner); to those representing the other two "official" estates (the aristocrats: Knight and Squire; the peasantry: the Plowman); to the "new" estate of Intellectuals (the Clerk); and to the representatives of the "middle class" (e.g. Miller, Reeve, Cook, Wife of Bath, Franklin, Merchant, and Shipman). Note that the Nun's Priest lacks a portrait (which is provided elsewhere, in the "epilogue" to the Nun's Priest's Tale), although he is mentioned as one of three priests accompanying the Prioress. What is Chaucer's attitude toward the Church? Is he anti-religious? What if anything is being satirized? Contrast the portraits of the two women, the Wife of Bath and the Prioress. Love is mentioned in both portraits. Is the sort of love which interests each woman the same? How might each define this "love"? Is it appropriate to her station in life? (What sort of love might one expect a Prioress to be concerned with?)

Contents of this and linked pages Copyright Debora B. Schwartz, 1996-2009

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl430/estates.html

Beowulf: Twenty Questions for Discussion

Roy M. Liuzza
Department of English
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
301 McClung Tower
Knoxville, TN 3796-0430

1. Who is Scyld? Where does he come from? Where does he go? What does he do? Why does the poem begin here, rather than with Hrothgar and Grendel?
2. What is Grendel’s lineage? What do the characters in the poem know about Grendel? How is this different from what we the audience know?
3. Trace the history of the hall Heorot – why was it built, what happened within its walls, how and by whom was it destroyed?
4. Who is Unferth, and why is he so hostile to Beowulf? Why is he allowed to speak that way?
5. What do the poets within Beowulf sing about? To whom do they sing their songs? What is the purpose of their performances?
6. Why is the focus of the story on Beowulf as a hero rather than as a king? What is the difference?
7. Where does the dragon come from? Why does he attack the Geats? Is the dragon a greater or lesser threat than Grendel? Why does Beowulf go to fight him?
8. Who are the Swedes and Frisians? Why are we given so much detailed information about the history of their quarrels with the Geats?
9. Trace the history of the Dragon’s hoard from its first to its last burial. How is this treasure different from other treasures in the poem?
10. When Beowulf dies, does he go to Heaven?

---

11. What are some of the differences between the poet’s world and that of the characters in the poem? What are the continuities between these worlds? Is there irony in our vision of this past age? How does the poet create a distance between the characters and himself – and how does he express their own sense of a distant past?
12. Is Beowulf an epic? What sort of social order produces “epic” poetry? What values does the poem promote, and how does it promote them? What sorts of conflicts with or resistances to the ideology of epic can be expressed? What sorts are found within the poem itself?
13. Look at the religious references in the poem: what are the names for God? What biblical events are mentioned, and who mentions them? What specifically pagan practices (sacrifice, burial, augury, etc.) are described? How do the characters see their relationship to God (or the gods)? Why would a Christian author write a poem about a pagan hero?
14. Does the heroic code expressed in Beowulf conflict with a Christian sensibility?
15. Try to construct a relative timeline (without specific dates) for the events narrated and alluded to in the poem. Include the reigns of the Danish kings (Heremod, Scyld, etc.), the Swedish-Geatish wars, the life and death of the hero Beowulf, the destruction of Heorot, and any other events which seem relevant to your understanding of the story. Which plots are told in a straightforward narrative, and which are not? Why are there so many digressions and allusions? Discuss the relation between the plot (what happens) and the story (what order things are told in) in Beowulf.
16. What is the status of gold and gift-giving in the poem? Who gives gifts, who receives them, and why? Are the modern concepts of wealth, payment, monetary worth and greed appropriate for the world of Beowulf?
17. The manuscript text of Beowulf is divided into forty-three numbered sections (plus an unnumbered prologue); most critics, however, view the structure of the poem as either two-part (Young Beowulf / Old Beowulf) or three-part (the three battles). What grounds do critics have for these arguments? what are some of the ways the poem suggests its structure? what signals does the reader find to indicate endings and beginnings of sections and larger units?
18. Wealhtheow, Hygd, Hildeburh, Grendel’s mother – what do the female characters in Beowulf do? How do they do it? do they offer alternatives perspectives on the heroic world (so seemingly centered around male action) of the poem?
19. Why are there so many stories-within-the-story in the poem? What is the relation between these so-called “digressions” and the main narrative in Beowulf?
20. This is a question about how abstract structures are made into narratives. Every culture makes distinctions between what is inside the social order and what is outside, between the human and the non-human (a category which can include animals, plants, natural processes, monsters and the miraculous). Cultures organize themselves to exclude these “outside” things; social organization also works to control certain violent human tendencies inside the culture (anger, lust, fear, greed, etc.). How does the social world depicted in the poem do this? That is, what does it exclude, and why? What is its attitude towards the “outside” of culture? How does it control the forces that threaten social stability within the hall?
21. In between every story and its audience stands a narrator who tells the story; the narrator has certain attitudes, opinions, interests and objectives which direct the audience’s understanding of the story. This is one of the most basic, and yet most complex, facts of literature. Describe the relationship between the narrator and the story, and between the narrator and the audience, in Beowulf.