Dreams and dreaming in the Roman Empire : cultural memory and imagination
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Dreams and dreaming in the Roman Empire : cultural memory and imagination
Bloomsbury, 2013
- : HB
Available at / 4 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Based on the author's thesis (Ph.D)--University of Birmingham, 2010
Bibliography: p. [290]-304
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The history and literature of the Roman Empire is full of reports of dream prophecies, dream ghosts and dream gods. This volume offers a fresh approach to the study of ancient dreams by asking not what the ancients dreamed or how they experienced dreaming, but why the Romans considered dreams to be important and worthy of recording. Dream reports from historical and imaginative literature from the high point of the Roman Empire (the first two centuries AD) are analysed as objects of cultural memory, records of events of cultural significance that contribute to the formation of a group's cultural identity. The book also introduces the term 'cultural imagination', as a tool for thinking about ancient myth and religion, and avoiding the question of 'belief', which arises mainly from creed-based religions. The book's conclusion compares dream reports in the Classical world with modern attitudes towards dreams and dreaming, identifying distinctive features of both the world of the Romans and our own culture.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Dreams and Cultural Memory
1: Dreams in the Ancient World
2: Dreams in Literature of Record
3: Dreams in Imaginative Literature
4: Dreams in the Cultural Imagination
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
by "Nielsen BookData"
