Imagine a dreamland where roasted pigs wander about with knives in their backs to make carving easy, where grilled geese fly directly into one's mouth, where cooked fish jump out of the water and land at one's feet. The weather is always mild, the wine flows freely, sex is readily available, and all people enjoy eternal youth.
Such is Cockaigne. Portrayed in legend, oral history, and art, this imaginary land became the most pervasive collective dream of medieval times-an earthly paradise that served to counter the suffering and frustration of daily existence and to allay anxieties about an increasingly elusive heavenly paradise.
Illustrated with extraordinary artwork from the Middle Ages, Herman Pleij's Dreaming of Cockaigne is a spirited account of this lost paradise and the world that brought it to life. Pleij takes three important texts as his starting points for an inspired of the panorama of ideas, dreams, popular religion, and literary and artistic creation present in the late Middle Ages. What emerges is a well-defined picture of the era, furnished with a wealth of detail from all of Europe, as well as Asia and America.
Pleij draws upon his thorough knowledge of medieval European literature, art, history, and folklore to describe the fantasies that fed the tales of Cockaigne and their connections to the central obsessions of medieval life.
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Part 1 The Forfeiture of Happiness; The Beginning
- 1. Paradise Lost
- 2. Contours of a Book
- 3. The Power of Literature
- Part 2 Texts as Maps
- 4. Rhyming Texts L and B, Prose Text G
- 5. The Two Rhyming Texts on the Land of Cockaigne
- 6. Recitation and Writing
- 7. Oral Structures in Writing
- 8. The Existing Potential
- 9. The Prose Text on Luilekkerland
- Part 3 Eating to Forget
- 10. Eating Habits
- 11. Hunger and Scarcity
- 12. The Topos of Hunger
- 13. The Intoxicating Effect of Fasting
- 14. Gorging in Self-Defense
- 15. Food in Motion
- 16. Literary Refreshment
- Part 4 Paradise Refurbished
- 17. The Land of Cockaigne as Paradise
- 18. Never Say Die
- 19. Heavenly Rewards
- 20. Other Paradises
- 21. Lovely Places, Golden Ages
- 22. Wonder Gardens and Pleasure Parks
- 23. Dreams of Immortality
- Part 5 The Imagination Journeys Forth
- 24. Geographical Musings
- 25. Real Dreamworlds
- 26. Wonders of East and West
- 27. Fanciful Destinations
- 28. Virtual Dreamlands
- Part 6 Heretical Excesses
- 29. The Thousand-Year Reign of Peace and Prosperity
- 30. Heresies of the Free Spirit
- 31. Sex Adam-and-Eve Style
- 32. Low-Country Heterodoxy
- Part 7 Learning as a Matter of Survival
- 33. Didactic Differences
- 34. Topsy-Turvy Worlds
- 35. Hard Times
- 36. Moderation, Ambition, and Decorum
- 37. Lessons in Pragmatism
- Part 8 Dreaming of Cockaigne: The End
- 38. The Name Cockaigne
- 39. A Depreciated Cultural Asset
- 40. From Countryside to Town
- 41. The Necessity of Fiction
- Appendixes
- 1. Middle Dutch Rhyming Texts on Cockaigne
- 2. Dutch Prose Text of 1546 on Luilekkerland
- 3. Dutch Poems Appearing in English Translation
- Sources
- Bibliography
- Index
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