This course is designed to provide an introduction to dream poetry; poetry that adopts the conceit of having been a dream experienced by the writer, and then recorded for the reader to experience.
Modern, post-Freudian writing tends to view the dream as being something inextricably personal and connected to the inner self, a night-time manifestation of daily fears, anxieties, and desires. However, medieval and Early Modern dream poetry charts a slightly different course. These dreams are open, inventive, frequently comic, occasionally didactic, often truncated or abbreviated, and always rewarding.
In our time together, we’ll read and talk about a wide selection of dream poems, ranging from the elegiac (Pearl and The Book of the Duchess), to the didactic (selections from The Pilgrim’s Progress); the prophetic and political (The Five Dreams of Adam Davy, Simon Forman’s dreams of Elizabeth I), to the comic (The House of Fame). Alongside reading our primary texts, we will look at selected historical, scientific, and artistic materials in order to think about the contexts in which these dreams were being written and read. Middle English texts will be read in the original, but with extensive glosses and translations provided, in order that we can both experience the texts as they were written, but also be able quickly to comprehend their language and form.
The classes will take the form of a short daily lecture, followed by small-group study and discussion. Dream poetry is an exciting, influential, and often under-studied genre of literature, and you will complete the course having been thoroughly well-versed in a wide selection of dream poems, and understanding much more about the contexts in which they were composed, and their possible influences upon later writing, art, and thought.
Learning outcomes
- To become familiar with a wide variety of dream poems;
- To improve comprehension of Middle and Early Modern English;
- To understand more about the historical, political, and social contexts of dream-writing.