False Memories: The Dream of Chaucer and Chaucer's Dream in the Medieval Revival

Author / Editor
Osberg, Richard H.

Title
False Memories: The Dream of Chaucer and Chaucer's Dream in the Medieval Revival

Published
Studies in Medievalism 19 (2010): 204-26.
Defining Neomedievalism(s)

Description
Examines the role of two "false memories" of Chaucer's life in the formation of nineteenth-century attitudes toward the poet and his reputation. The spurious incidents--Chaucer's exile and imprisonment and his "retirement" to a park at Woodstock--were repeated in biographical accounts and other popular materials, helping to create a romanticized idea of the poet.

Chaucer Subjects
Chaucer's Life
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion