Realism of Dream Vision: The Poetic Exploitation of the Dream Experience in Chaucer and His Contemporaries

by Constance B. Hieatt

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Constance Bartlett Hieatt was an American/Canadian scholar with a broad interest in medieval languages and literatures, including Old Norse literature, Anglo-Saxon prosody and literature, and Middle English language, literature, and culture. She was an editor and translator of Karlamagnús saga, of Beowulf, and a scholar of Geoffrey Chaucer. She was particularly known as one of the world's foremost experts in English medieval cooking and cookbooks, and authored and co-authored a number of important books considered essential publications in the field. She died on December 29, 2011 in Essex, CT at the age of 83 years.

Reviews

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains important information that was highly useful while writing my thesis for my undergraduate degree. Hieatt gives good information pertaining to the context of dreams in the medieval world. It explains how dreams were thought of during the time and their importance. Hieatt also explains the form of the dream vision with how it is put in a love sense as well as religious which helps when identifying a work as a dream vision. I highly reccomend this book if you want to learn more about the genre, especially when reading Chaucer and Pearl.

[Othy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not particularly astounding of a study, but interesting nonetheless. Hieatt focuses on explaining the characteristics of dream visions as being simply those of normal dreams. This is, unfortunately, only the most obvious of explanation and thus not much is discussed in-depth. The section on allegory and dream interpretations over the centuries before the 14th is still very interesting in itself, though very little is said of how the poets would know of such works (for instance, how they might obtain it, which manuscripts had the works, etc). In the end, the book was good for me who started the study of Middle English dream-visions with Hieatt's book, though I know I have to go elsewhere for any more definite information.