The Medieval Past

One of the key settings of the poem is an imagined Medieval past. This is not any specific or real historical location, but instead the shared cultural imagination of a "dark age" of courtly romance and valiant knights. This reference is made clear in the fourth line, which refers to "ladies dead" and "lovely knights" – knights and ladies conjuring much the same image of the medieval romances that they might today (4). Medievalism, the movement within art and culture that appeals to a nostalgic, imagined view of the dark ages as this time of courtly romance, magic, and stagnation rather than the complex and extensive historical period it was, is thus in a very real sense the setting of this poem. Interestingly, Shakespeare seems to comment on this choice by having the Medieval writers he imagines also do the work of imagining a different historical period, the...