Fifteenth-Century English Dream Visions: An Anthology

This anthology provides new editions of five 15th-century English poems framed as dreams and demonstrates the energy with which this influential medieval form was explored by post-Chaucerian writers. Lydgate's "Temple of Glass", a complex love vision, generates a counsel of a wide-ranging kind; "The Kingis Quair" of James I of Scotland and "Love's Renewal" from the English poems of Charles of Orleans manipulate autobiographical detail to philosophical and political ends; the anonymous "Assembly of Ladies" foregrounds women's voices; and finally, Skelton's "Bowge of Court" adapts the love vision to the purposes of a satire on court life.;The editions are in lightly modernized spelling and accompanied by glosses, explanatory notes and textual commentary. Each text has its own introduction and recommendations for further reading and a general introduction discusses the significance of the dream form, its importance for Middle English writers, and the extraordinary variety of directions in which it was developed by 15th-century poets.