Introduction  

The early Middle English poem The Land of Cockaygne has been called a satire, a parody, and—finally, more appropriately—a “topical comic fantasy,” which “vents the urge (inevitable in men and writers living under extreme restraints) to kick over the traces and play the fool from time to time."  The unknown Middle English author depicts an unapologetically sensual paradise, and his language and images are touched with a joie de vivre that removes the harsh edge of true satire from this poem’s portrayal of a monastic paradise.  There are Old French and Middle Dutch analogues, yet arguably they do not match the ingenuity of the Middle English poem in its witty combination of earthly and spiritual elements into a cheerfully immoral fantasyland for the common monk—and by extension, the common man.  The poem is itself a mirthful gem, whose descriptions beg modern readers to try and imagine an audience whose sight was not regularly dazzled with a stream of perfected images (printed or broadcast). The poem's glorious hyperbole in the abundance of food and drink,and the absence of illness, work, and moral judgment of sin (gluttony, sloth, lechery) speak volumes about what the audience of this poem knew instead to be true. As Herman Pleij explains:

The dream of [Cockaygne] was conjured up again and again in an attempt to satisfy more material longings than those endorsed by the church. . . . The underpinnings of these material furnishings of paradise were provided by biblical exegesis, itself the interpreter of contemporary needs and fantasies that one would naturally graft onto one’s personal vision of paradise. . . . The related tradition of the locus amoenus, or ‘lovely place,’ of classical rhetoric, as well as the idyllic spots and dreamworlds of other cultures, also exerted a noticeable influence.”

“Sometimes there is a water barrier, a river, perhaps, or the sea. The realm is usually located on an island in such a case, or a group of islands. . . . Here we usually find a garden with a fountain or several fountains, and one or more conspicuous trees laden with fruit. . . . [Birds] are especially to be noticed for the quality of their song.  Other familiar motifs include the pavilion or dwelling place. . . jewels in the garden or in the decoration of [it]… [for example] the predominance of crystal [in an architectural structure]."