DREAM THEORY AND POETRY

It is difficult to define precisely the complex affiliations between the dreams found in medieval literature and the attitudes toward dreaming expressed, for instance, in dream theory or the dreambooks. Even the immensely popular Somniale Danielis, with its method of dream interpretation, bears a problematic relation to the dreams of medieval fiction. While Steven Fischer presents his collation of dreambook material as a “sourcebook for the interpretation of medieval literary dreams,” he simultaneously warns that “there is no evidence that even one single dream in all of medieval European literature exclusively requires a dreambook for its interpretation.” Simone Collin, in a study of the literary use of dreambooks, concludes that “les clefs des songes et les songes tels qu'ils sont rapportés dans la littérature médiévale sont deux aspects différents et indépendents de l'onirocritique” [the dreambooks and dreams as they are reported in medieval literature are two different and independent aspects of dream interpretation].

In considering the influence of the dreambooks – and certainly of more recondite theoretical material – we cannot presuppose the literary artist's familiarity with any particular idea; nor can we assume that authors would necessarily have used that dream lore with which they were demonstrably familiar. In creating a fictional dream, the writer may have a specific theory of dreaming in mind, and may depend on that theory to create certain literary effects.