Castles of the Mind: A Study of Medieval Architectural Allegory
- Author / Editor
- Whitehead, Christiania.
Castles of the Mind: A Study of Medieval Architectural Allegory
- Published
- Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003.
- Physical Description
- xi, 324 pp.
- Series
- Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages.
- Description
- Whitehead describes the complex significations of architectural structures in medieval thought and memory, examining Christian and classical roots of such thinking. Discusses classical, scriptural, and exegetical commentaries on concrete figures (e.g., temple, ark, cloister, castle, household) and explores commonplace rhetorical uses of architecture to represent abstractions such as fortune, fame, honor, knowledge, sex, and courtly love. Focuses on examples from vernacular literary representations (especially Middle English) ,including sustained discussion of Chaucer's HF as a skeptical response to Dante's castle of honor ("Inferno" 4) and its humanist legacy.
- Chaucer Subjects
- House of Fame
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations