Date of Award
Fall 2022
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Medieval Studies
First Advisor
Minnis, Alastair
Abstract
Over the past few decades, the role of memory in medieval societies and texts has beendetailed by numerous scholars. Forgetting has received much less attention. This project investigates positive portrayals of forgetfulness in medieval texts from fourteenth and fifteenth century England. These texts range from devotional texts such as The Cloud of Unknowing to romances such as Ywain. Although very different in aims and audience, these texts all contain moments in which forgetting rather than remembering is desired. Through these diverse texts, I seek to demonstrate some of the different functions and forms of forgetting. Whether in the mechanics of penance or as a remedy for loss, medieval writers utilized forgetting as a means of breaking free from the entanglements of the past.
Recommended Citation
Wild, Clara, "The Book of Forgetting: Oblivion and Erasure in Late Medieval England" (2022). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 707.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/707