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Dreams and Visions in Medieval Literature A DREAMS AND VISIONS IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE A Dissertation by AMBER ROSE DUNAI Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Robert Boenig Committee Members, Hilaire Kallendorf Britt Mize Nancy Warren Jennifer Wollock Head of Department, Nancy Warren May 2015 Major Subject: English Copyright 2015 Amber Rose Dunai ABSTRACT This study illuminates the connection between the conventions of medieval mystical texts and the English dream vision genre. It diverges from the majority of dream vision studies by addressing the entire range of English visionary poetry, from The Dream of the Rood through the late medieval Chaucerians. The dissertation examines these pieces of literature as they relate to medieval mystical practices and writings, focusing on the ways in which biographical visionary experiences of the mystics influence literary English dream visions, while also touching on the ways in which religious literature likewise appropriates the courtly conventions of French and Middle English visionary poetry. The study of this relationship is facilitated through analysis of the role of the narrator in relation to the events of the visionary experience in both mystical and literary texts. While this role has been previously discussed in terms of activity or passivity on the part of the narrator, this study builds on this dichotomy with a model comprised of degrees and varieties of active and passive behavior, and uses this model in order to examine the relationship between autobiographical and literary visionary texts. Ultimately, this study argues that it is most productive to consider mystical texts and dream visions as members of a larger category of visionary literature, particularly as this approach encourages comparison between texts previously read apart, and may even challenge the classification of texts traditionally considered fictional. The dissertation includes a comparative reading of Julian of Norwich’s Showings and The Dream of the Rood; discussion of narratorial roles in representative mystical ii writings by Hadewijch of Antwerp and Mechthild von Magdeburg; discussion of narratorial roles in religious dream visions represented by Pearl and William Langland’s Piers Plowman; and discussion of narratorial roles in secular dream visions represented by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid. It concludes that while the roles which narrators occupy vary among visionaries and visions in the subgenres discussed, the role of Interpreter is notably absent in many non-autobiographical texts, suggesting an increased expectation of audience participation facilitated by the transferal of the role of Interpreter from narrator to the listener/reader. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to my committee chair, Dr. Robert Boenig, and my committee members, Dr. Hilaire Kallendorf, Dr. Britt Mize, Dr. Nancy Warren, and Dr. Jennifer Wollock, for their support and guidance throughout the composition and revision of this dissertation. Thanks also to Dr. Hugh McCann for his support during the early stages of the dissertation. I would also like to thank the College of Liberal Arts, through which I received a generous Vision 2020 Dissertation Enhancement Award which allowed me to travel to archives and view many holdings relevant to this study. Thanks as well to the librarians at Evans Library, particularly the Interlibrary Loan staff, without whom my research would have been much delayed, if not impossible. And last but not least, thank you to my friends and colleagues at Texas A&M University, as well as to my family and my husband, Adam. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Review of Scholarship ................................................................................................... 7 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 12 Chapter Outline ............................................................................................................ 19 CHAPTER II THE DREAM OF THE ROOD AND THE ENGLISH VISIONARY TRADITION .................................................................................................................... 23 The Dream of the Rood and Julian of Norwich’s Book of Showings ........................... 34 Cædmon and Cynewulf ................................................................................................ 39 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 50 CHAPTER III MYSTICAL TEXTS AND THE RELIGION OF LOVE ....................... 53 The Religion of Courtly Love ...................................................................................... 54 Hadewijch and the Garden of Love.............................................................................. 68 Mechthild von Magdeburg as the Active Visionary .................................................... 81 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER IV THE ENGLISH RELIGIOUS DREAM VISION .................................. 93 Pearl ............................................................................................................................. 96 Piers Plowman ........................................................................................................... 120 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 137 CHAPTER V THE COURTLY NARRATOR IN SECULAR LITERARY DREAM VISIONS ........................................................................................................................ 139 Chaucer and the Dream Vision Tradition .................................................................. 140 Henryson’s Subversive Vision ................................................................................... 160 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 179 CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 181 v REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 189 APPENDIX A TYPES OF NARRATORIAL STANCES ........................................... 207 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Dreams and visions are, in a sense, experiences occupying two opposing sides of a spectrum. The former represents an activity which nearly every human experiences at some point in his or her life, and which many people report on a nightly or semi-nightly basis, and the latter represents supernatural excursions experienced by a privileged few. Dream content ranges from the mundane and meaningless to the prophetic and divine. While modern dreams tend to be viewed as natural unconscious responses to waking stimuli in the popular tradition established by Sigmund Freud,1 some medieval dreams were received as potential communications sent directly from God, and are treated as such in both Old and Middle English literature. Thus, in Bede’s account, Cædmon the lay brother (a simple man in possession of no particular poetic talents) is given the gift of religious composition by an angel in a dream and immediately authors the first known religious poem in English; while the story is presented as an anomalous, miraculous one, Bede’s audience is nonetheless expected to believe in the potential for dreams to work as conduits between the earthly and the heavenly. While Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, one of the most influential dream theory texts of the Middle Ages, allows for the “idle” dream central to modern interpretation, it is important to note that rarer, supernaturally-influenced dreams 1 See Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams (1899) for the influential theory behind modern responses to dream activity, as well as The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) for the continued attribution of subconscious preoccupations and desires to waking, conscious activity and behavior. 1 are, indeed, accepted as possible by medieval dreamers, and are taken seriously as such in a good many texts. Dreams in both pagan and patristic schemas exist in a spectrum running from true to false. In Macrobius (and similarly in Calcidius), this spectrum includes five distinct categories: oraculum (a revelation revealed by an authoritative figure), visio (a vision of mundane events to occur in the future), somnium (a vision of veiled truth requiring interpretation), visum (the appearance of specters), and insomnium (visions brought about by waking distress). The former three are true or significant visions, the latter two false or meaningless. These categories are not mutually exclusive; Macrobius reveals how the dream of Scipio simultaneously embraces aspects
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