Medieval Dream-Poetry

by A.C. Spearing

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 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.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Medieval, Poetry

246 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 1976

Reviews

[Adriano Bulla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must for any Medievalist. Spearing switches on the light on the alternative tradition through a seminal study of Medieval oneiric poetry. Starting with an analysis of how Boece's Consolatio Philosophiae and the importance of dreams in the shaping of the mindset of the Middle Ages, he then presents the great dream poems of the time, from Chaucer to Langland, the conventions, such as the locus amoenus and hortus conclusus of a genre almost forgotten before the publication of this text are studied with rigour and on detail.

I have loved this text so much that I have been collecting everything I can find by him, editions of Chaucer with an introduction by Spearing, articles, you name it.