Chaucers Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
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The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is an example of "Estates Satire," a style that ridicules the mistreatments that occur within the three traditional levels of society or Estates especially the clergy. Chaucer's Prologue portrays a very old and closed social order however it shows that the society is actually changing or that social order is breaking down. Most of Chaucer's pilgrims are by no means satisfied to stay in places that they should be in. Instead they are busy in the getting of wealth, status, and respectability. The conflict between the opposing ideas like the old and the new is seen not only in the General Prologue but also throughout The Canterbury Tales in the individual pilgrims' prologues and tales.
In the starting of Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the narrator talks about "conditions" of the pilgrims, their "degree" the social rank, "which they were," and also "what array that they were inn". Here when he starts apologizing about the various use o words, he is in reality making fun of the different levels of society. For example at the end of the above speech speaker says that he has now told their "estate" and "array" and apologizes if he has not arranged them in the "degree . . ...