Abstract

Abstract:

The poets and philosophers of the late Middle Ages were fascinated by the phenomenon of dreaming. The Scholastics provided detailed accounts of how dreams are generated by the misperception of sense impressions. Similarly, the dream-vision genre often included narrative frames that allowed readers to see how the external circumstances of the dreamer condition the content of their dreams. This essay examines how three of the most important writers in the medieval dream-vision tradition—Dante, Machaut, and Chaucer—explored the sensory origins of dreaming. The scenes examined here raise the possibility that not all of the senses close completely during sleep and, in so doing, call into question the boundary between waking and sleeping. Drawing on readers of Aristotle from Albert the Great to Freud, the essay argues that an Aristotelian framework can help us better to understand how literary dreams provoke questions about the workings of perception and the relation between art and life.

pdf

Share