"If We Shadows Have Offended": Reflections of Social Attitudes Toward Reform in Late Medieval and Reformation Dream Visions

14th-century dream visions feature intensely personal narrators with attitudes and desires, who agonize over difficult situations, who make errors in judgment. Deeply characterized narrators contribute thematically to these poems, which explore personal subjects like grief and faith. By the 16th century, the form had undergone a thematic transformation from personal narrative to political allegory, losing much of its potency. The narrators use the dream vision structure in order to beg authority figures to forgive the potentially offensive statements made in their work because it was only a dream. Many narrators are ciphers, the eyes and mouthpieces of a theme rather than characters with personalities and goals. They observe situations more than manipulating them. Their dreams focus more on social than personal critique. As British ideology shifted from an internally-oriented belief in patient endurance and a deep-seated belief in hierarchal structures, to a more externally-oriented commitment to Reformation, the function of the dream vision underwent a parallel shift from exploring internal, personal themes toward exploring external, social themes.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Racicot, William A.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anne Brannen
• Bernard Beranek
• Stuart M. Kurland

• Dream
• Medieval
• Narrator
• Patience
• Reformation
• Vision

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1077

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2093