Dreams, Memory, and Imagination in Byzantium ed. by Bronwen Neil and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides (review)

Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium is a valuable exploration of the conceptions and roles of imaginary experiences in Byzantium. Edited by Bronwen Neil and Ava Anagnostou-Laoutides, the volume attempts to “go beyond the modern disjunction between the rational and the irrational, to appreciate the layers of social and individual meanings that the imaginary had in the lives of Byzantine dreamers, writers, chronographers, hymnographers, traders and artists. . . .” (1). The modern disjunction between rational and irrational is clearly inappropriate for Byzantium, and the assembled essays go some way toward replacing it with an understanding of imaginary experiences that would be more recognizable to medieval Roman people.

Most of the essays deal with dreams. The prevalence of handbooks on dream interpretation in the surviving manuscript record indicates both that medieval Roman people thought their dreams were important and that they expected dreams to carry meaning for their lives. The great difficulty for scholars is that the dreams of regular people about their own lives were not recorded. We have stories about dreams that were dreamt by rulers and saints, or dreams of other people about rulers and saints. These stories are deployed in texts in order to say something important about the saints, the rulers, or the politics surrounding them. This leads to a number of essays that are about the roles stories of dreams and visions played in historical texts. Meaghan McEvoy points out the roles played by visions and dreams in descriptions of dynastic politics of the sixth century. Ryan Strickler demonstrates how apocalyptic discourse was used in seventh-century texts to legitimize or undercut targeted political leaders. Maximillian Lau argues that a prophetic vision recorded in the twelfth-century Armenian history of Matthew of Edessa may have been intended to refer to the Roman emperor John II. Bronwyn Neil compares dreams appearing in contemporaneous Byzantine and early Islamic chronicles and finds in both cases dreams were imputed to have personal and social significance, and hence had a role to play in legitimizing discourses. Roger Scott examines the frequency with which dreams were described in Byzantine histories by Malalas, Skylitzes, and Kedrenos. He helpfully includes an appendix listing dreams and visions recorded in the Kedrenos. Penelope Buckley compares Psellos’s use of dreams and visions in his Chronographia and encomium for his mother. These essays all say interesting things about the texts being studied and the various functions of stories about dreams and visions.

Some essays deal with theories of dreaming or mystical experience. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides draws attention to the ways that discussions of dreams in Plato’s work influenced the treatment of dreams by Clement and Origen. Francesco Monticini argues that Synesius of Cyrene’s treatise On Dreams presented a philosophical justification for conceiving of dreams as a product of human interiority, rather than one entering the human imagination from outside. Fourteenth-century commentaries on Synesius’s work suggest that interest in this debate may have been sparked by the competition between intellectuals who favored classical learning and those, such as Gregory Palamas, who defended their access to direct mystical knowledge of God. Ken Perry provides an overview of where different Greek and Roman medical thinkers located the site of imagination within the brain. Andrew Mellas interprets Andrew of Crete’s Great Canon as an invitation for the participants in the liturgy to “enter the dreamery of the liturgical world and experience a mystical vision of the divine” (299) and explains how by creating a liminal space for personal contemplation and mixing biblical images from the past and future, performance of the liturgy could help induce mystical visions among participants.

Sex was one of the things that filled the dreamworld of medieval Romans and this situation caused some of them a great deal of moral anguish. Stories of monks disturbed by their own erotic dreams are discussed by Inbar Graiver. He explores how the rise of Christian spirituality led to an increased interest in individual interiority and self...