After dividing the text into three distinct parts, namely the State, the Church and the commons, Gower's prologue addresses all three states from its "medial" stylistic point. Although initially dedicated to the king, this poem addresses all people: the "lewed" as well as the learned, though perhaps with less emphasis on the commons. While the trinity of states in the Conventional sense suggests a structure in which the three states (those who pray - the clergy; those who fight - the nobility; and those who work - the peasants) should work together for the common good, their actual history being characterized by constant friction and conflict. In Gower's view, this idealism has given way to a deep pessimism and even despair about the current disintegration of the social order. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't be banned"? Get an original essay. Just as in the General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, what is interesting about Gower's Prologue is not that it portrays an archaic and closed social order, but that it reveals an order that is about to experience an expected disaster. Gower's characters are not at all content to remain in their places, but are instead engaged in the corrupt pursuit of wealth, status (outside their net worth) and respectability. The conflict between the old and the new, and between tradition and ambition is evident throughout the Prologue, emphasized by the poet's constant nostalgic comparisons between the utopian situation of "tho" and the failure of "now". Bot now men sein is otherwise, Simon the cause has undertaken, the worlds swerd on honde are taken; and this is wonderful, natheles, ... as now that holy cherche has gone of that here positive law has established, to make werre and fight for the good of the worlds, which may not last. (Prol. 240-249)While taking into account the fact that the Confessio Amantis was written in a period in which social structures and social theory were constantly changing, it is worth noting that one of the main differences between the medieval order and that In the order of modern society is the pre-eminent role played in it by the Church and its multiple institutions. The Church was itself a complex social structure and inevitably constituted one of the divisions envisaged in medieval social theory. An obvious division is the bipartite one between clergy and lay people: those belonging to the Church and those outside it. Another, one of several tripartite divisions and deriving from the Roman Church's doctrine of clergy celibacy, is based on sexual activity: virgins, widowers and widowers, and married people. (This is the classification that Chaucer's Wife of Bath claims to accept when defending her right to remarry as often as she pleases.) Gower uses the metaphor of these divisions ("regnes ben divided" Prol. 127) with emphasis in the Prologue of Confessio Amantis to represent the decrepitude of 14th century England: the source of all the evils of the age. As Gower says, sin is "moder of divisioun" (Prol.1030), and division is "moder of confusion" (Prol.852). Through the metaphors of division, Gower connects the romantic plot of books 1-8 with the criticism of the prologue. The prologue also functions as an indicator of Gower's political alliance - ("A book for the sake of King Richardes / To whom my ligeance belongs.") Initially dedicated to Richard II, the Prologue of the Confessio was as indicative of Gower's admiration as for Richard II, what later, due to his revision, was indicative of his disappointment in the monarch himself. While the Confessio could have been the result of Gower's visit to the royal barge (as recounted in lines 24-92 in the first."