Medieval dream-poetry

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Bibliographic Information

Medieval dream-poetry

A.C. Spearing

Cambridge University Press, 1976

  • : pbk

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

A 1976 study of the medieval English dream-poem, set against the background of classical and medieval visionary and religious writings and the theory of dreams from classical times down to Freud and Jung. In this first general treatment of one of the most popular kinds of literature in the Middle Ages, Mr Spearing examines many specific poems in some detail and explores the nature of the visionary tradition in which medieval dream-poets felt themselves to be writing: he develops a theory of the dream-poem as a type of work in which medieval poets focused their own consciousness of the activity of creating imaginative fictions, variously and often ambiguously balanced between vision and fantasy. The book begins with the early tradition of dream poetry in Latin writers such as Boethius, moving on to consider Chaucer, alliterative dream-poems, especially Pearl and Piers Plowman, and finally turning to late medieval dream-poetry.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Part I. Dreams and Visions: 1. The nature of dream-poetry
  • 2. Spiritual adventure
  • 3. Macrobious on Scipio's dream
  • 4. Scriptural and Christian visions
  • 5. Visions of place
  • 5. Doctrinal visions
  • 6. The Roman de la Rose: Guillaume de Lorris
  • 7. The Roman de la Rose: Jean de Meun
  • 8. Fourteenth-century dream poems
  • Part II. Chaucer: 1. The Book of the Duchess
  • 2. The House of Fame
  • 3. The Parliament of Fowls
  • 4. The Prologue to The Legend of Good Women
  • Part III. The Alliterative Tradition: 1. Pearl
  • 2. The Piers Plowman tradition: Winner and Waster
  • 3. The Parliament of the Three Ages
  • 4. Piers Plowman: the A-text
  • 5. Piers Plowman: the B-revision
  • 6. Langland's followers: Mum and the Sothsegger
  • 7. Death and Life
  • Part IV. The Chaucerian Tradition: 1. Lydgate: The Temple of Glass
  • 2. Clanvowe: The Cuckoo and the Nightingale
  • 3. The Kingis Quair
  • 4. Scottish dream-prologues
  • 5. Dunbar
  • 6. Skelton: the Bowge of Court
  • Douglas: The Palice of Honour
  • 7. Skelton: The Garland of Laurel
  • Notes
  • Booklist
  • Index.

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