To prepare for next week:

For next week you should read the alliterative dream-poem Pearl, by the Gawain-poet, and two short dream-poems by Chaucer, The House of Fame and the Prologue to The Legend of Good Women (the G-version, on the right-hand side of the page in the Riverside Chaucer). If you want to look at other dream-poetry, you could read one or both of Chaucer’s other dream-poems, The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Fouls, or the introduction or poems in the helpful anthology Fifteenth- Century English Dream Visions, edited by Julia Boffey. This session will give you a chance to think about dream poetry as a genre, but will also consolidate your knowledge of two of the authors at whom we have already looked. In the exam you could write on both Sir Gawain and Pearl, or some of the Canterbury Tales with the Legend, for example, so it is worth considering similarities to, and differences from, these writers’ other works as you read and make notes. For secondary reading, A.C. Spearing’s book Medieval Dream-Poetry is probably the best introduction to the history of the dream-poem form, with discussion of most of the main Middle English dream-poems. You would also find the early parts of C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image a very helpful introduction to classical and early medieval dream-poetry, such as the Dream of Scipio by Cicero, and the writing of Macrobius. You could also try reading some earlier dream-poetry: look at the beginning of the Romance of the Rose, a very influential dream-poem for Chaucer, and which the Gawain-poet also knew well: there are several modern English translations of this poem. You might want to look again at Ad Putter’s Introduction to the Gawain-Poet, or at the interesting essay by James Simpson, “Ethics and Interpretation: Reading Wills in Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women”, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer 20 (1998), 73 – 100. As you read, it may be helpful to consider and make notes on some of the following:  What role do dreamers themselves play in their dreams?  How much does poets interpret the dreams, and how far do readers make up their own minds?  What roles do women play in dream-visions?  What is the relationship between dream-poetry and religious ideas?  To what extent is dream-poetry able to make political points?  What role does humour play in dream-poetry? You might find it helpful to think about some of these issues in comparison with Piers Plowman, which is also of course a series of such dream-visions. You can include discussion of Piers Plowman in your essays to supplement discussion of these texts. You should then attempt one of the essay questions below and hand your essay into me at least 48 hours before our next supervision. You should make reference to at least three poems.  Either: “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented – and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Humpty Dumpty, in Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, 1871) Are medieval dream-poems literary puzzles to be decoded?  Or: “Writing a dream-vision allowed medieval poets an imaginative freedom they were denied in other genres.” Discuss.