Herman Pleij

Herman Pleij (b. 1943) is an emeritus professor of medieval literature at the University of Amsterdam. His work focuses mainly on the cultural history of literature, the development of commonplace morality and the formation of Dutch identities in general.

Non-Fiction

Previous titles include the bestselling The Guild of the Blue Barge (1979), Dreaming of Cockaigne: Medieval Fantasies of the Perfect Life (1997), Colors Demonic and Divine: Shades of Meaning in the Middle Ages (2002) and Moet kunnen: In Search of the Dutch Identity (2014). Various works have been translated into English, Chinese, Arabic, Hungarian and Lithuanian.

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Herman Pleij

Dreaming of Cockaigne

In the Middle Ages Cockaigne was the lost paradise, a land of plenty which existed somewhere on earth. Wine and beer flowed through the countryside, food could be gathered from the ground, everything belonged to everyone, the weather was always beautiful, all got what they wanted and stayed forever young. This lost paradise is continually evoked in medieval literature; stories about it were passed on from generation to generation and new variants developed over time and in different regions.

Part ofNon-Fiction