Monumental Chaucer: Print Culture, Conflict, and Canonical Resilience

The early modern literary canonisation of Chaucer and the erection of a monument to the poet in Westminster Abbey in 1556 are symptoms of the incipient development of a national English literary canon, whose defining element is the vernacular. Contextualising Chaucer’s memoralisation against the backdrop of two related phenomena – the development of print culture and the post-Reformation religious conflicts – this article aims to shed new light on the complex relation between monumentalisation in stone and in print, delving into the ambivalent ideological implications of Chaucer’s early modern reception. As a result of this critical itinerary, Chaucer will be ultimately discussed as an emblem of canonical resilience at a time when the past had become a contested territory.