The Dream of Language: Chaucer’s "en son Latin.”

Description: Contemplates the pains of language change and language death, distinguishing between change and the perception of it; exploring Latinity, vernacularity, and their continuities; and expanding upon the "dream of language" theorized by Giorgio Agamben. Discusses attitudes toward language in the "Hypnerotomachia Polyphili," Agamben’s focus; in works by Dante, Villon, and Machaut; and in TC, where Chaucer poses Criseyde as an emblem of language's constant change--a figure of love and loss and of "language's history as enfolded in a past present." Comments on dreams in TC and links medieval views of language with the modern notion of rapid "translanguaging."

Alternative Title: The Presidential Address. The New Chaucer Society. Twenty-First International Congress, July 10–15, 2018. Victoria University, Toronto, Canada.