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Literatura Inglesa I Medieval Estates Satire Margarita Carretero Gonzlez

2.3. Medieval Estates Satire 2.3.1. Models of representation of the natural and social order in the Middle ages a. The Body Politic b. The Great Chain of Being c. The Three Estates a. The Body Politic
The

analogy of the body politic is the perception and elaboration of correspondences between society or the state and the individual human body. These correspondences may then be applied in a variety of ways in political analysis or argument. In their simplest form, these arguments assert that given the organic nature of the state, then certain political structures or actions are necessarily appropriate. A natural society is one which functions in a manner similar to the human body. In the history of political philosophy and polemic, the analogy has been applied to many different forms of government and in support of a variety of particular opinions. In general, however, these states are hierarchical and authoritarian and the ideas being supported are conservative, stressing social order and obedience. There are a number of important exceptions. As a strategy of argumentation, moreover, the analogy is used in many different genresphilosophical treatise, political exhortation, sermon, poem, or drama. The analogy may appear as an allusive phrase or it may provide the structure for an extended discussion. Historically speaking, the analogy was used extensively from the time of the Greeks to the seventeenth century, when it was effectively challenged by another analogy, that of the social contract; in the nineteenth century developments in the study of biological evolution gave new impetus and application to the analogy. (From Dictionary of the History of Ideas: http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-11) Example: Meneniuss story of the rebellion of the limbs against the belly, in William Shakespeares Coriolanus (Act 1, Sc. i):
There was a time when all the body's members Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it: That only like a gulf it did remain I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body. The belly answer'd [...] 'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he, 'That I receive the general food at first, Which you do live upon; and fit it is, Because I am the store-house and the shop

Literatura Inglesa I Medieval Estates Satire Margarita Carretero Gonzlez

Of the whole body: but, if you do remember, I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain; And, through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves and small inferior veins From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live: and though that all at once, You, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,-[...] 'Though all at once cannot See what I do deliver out to each, Yet I can make my audit up, that all From me do back receive the flour of all, And leave me but the bran.' What say you to't? [...] The senators of Rome are this good belly, And you the mutinous members; for examine Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find No public benefit which you receive But it proceeds or comes from them to you And no way from yourselves. What do you think, You, the great toe of this assembly?

b. The Great Chain of Being


The

idea of a Chain of Being, or Scale of Creatures, is one of the guiding threads of interpretation of the universe worked out in Western science and philosophy. Like all ideas developed through a process of elaboration lasting centuries, it can be defined only by retracing its historical development in all its varied and often contradictory complexity. It will suffice to point out here what is constant in its many changing formulations. The Chain of Being is the idea of the organic constitution of the universe as a series of links or gradations ordered in a hierarchy of creatures, from the lowest and most insignificant to the highest, indeed to the ens perfectissimum which, uncreated, is yet its culmination and the end to which all creation tends. (From Dictionary of the History of the Ideas: http://etext.virginia.edu/cgilocal/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-45)

Literatura Inglesa I Medieval Estates Satire Margarita Carretero Gonzlez

Example: Ulyssess speech in William Shakespeares Troilus and Cressida (Act I, Sc.iii)
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd By him one step below, he by the next, That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation: And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

Literatura Inglesa I Medieval Estates Satire Margarita Carretero Gonzlez

III. THE THREE ESTATES A classic and simple tripartite division of the members of society according to their activities. At the top are those who pray (clergymen) those who fight (knights) and those who labour (peasants).

2.3.2. Medieval Estates Satire: Estates satire, which aim to give an analysis of society in terms of hierarchy, social function, and morality, were widespread throughout medieval Western Europe. They work by enumerating the various estates, the classes or professions of society, with the object of showing how far each falls short of the ideal to which it should conform. [...] The simplest division of society was into three estates, those who fight, those who pray, and those who labour, typified by the knight, the priest, and the ploughman. Estates satires generally give a more elaborate classification in terms of hierarchy and specialization: they often start at the top, with the pope or emperor or king, and work down through different examples of lay or ecclesiastical life, including burgesses, to peasants. Women were often treated as an estate to themselves (Helen Cooper, Oxford Guides to Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Oxford: O.U.P., 1991: 28). Medieval Estates Satire in The Prologue to William Langlands Piers Plowman: guidelines for discussion 1. Read the introduction to William Langland and look at the reasons that may have moved him to write this religious allegory. 2. What is a dream vision? Why do you think Langland chose this form to write Piers Plowman? 3. Establish the structure of the prologue, identifying the elements of estates satire. How many representatives of each estate can you find? How are they portrayed? 4. Comment on the symbolic meaning of the two towers. 5. Like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman belongs to the so-called alliterative revival tradition. Identify how alliteration works in the poem and comment on some of the effects it may have, for instance, in the opening lines (1-10). 6. What is your overall impression of medieval society after reading this part of the prologue? Bear it in mind when you compare it with Chaucers portrayal in The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

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