sights and visions that offer new levels of understand-
ing. Occasionally these include visions that give the
impression of being dreams within dreams.
Dream visions end with the dreamer’s awakening
into reality. This reality, however, is marked by refl ec-
tion on the content and meaning of the dream and the
resolution to write it down—that is, to create the text
that the reader has before them. At this point, the
author can debate the dream’s validity. Sometimes the
dreamer awakes more unhappy and confused than
before the dream, though this is not common.
Given the longevity of the dream visions format and
its popularity among medieval poets, scholars have
questioned whether dream vision poems constitute an
independent literary genre. The particular conventions
that are associated with it suggest to some critics that it
may be seen as a separate genre. Other scholars have
argued, however, that dream poems did not constitute a
separate category of love narratives and that many of the
characteristics that are associated with dream poems are
also found in poems about love which did not adopt the
dream form. Certainly, there are examples of poems that
appear to make use of the conventions of dream poetry,
but in which no one actually falls asleep and dreams.
For example, the 15th-century poem The Flower and the
Leaf is set in an idealized landscape and includes an
authoritative guide who explains the allegorical signifi -
cance of much of the action to the narrator. However, it
includes no explicit mention of a dream.
The dream was a useful device for framing narra-
tives. Describing a dream engages the audience through
the use of a common experience and invites interpreta-
tion. Many scholars have noted the overlay of classical
dream theory into medieval perceptions, with the
result being hybrid dream logic. The dream mecha-
nism also allows the author to disclaim responsibility
for what follows. At the same time, the form allows the
inclusion of memorable images and invokes the
authoritative tradition of visionary literature. One of
the hallmarks of dream poems is their fully realized
sense of their own existence as poems. The poems have
self-conscious narrators, and the action is made up of
their experiences.
It has been suggested by some scholars that the
dream framework functioned as a device for indicating
an altered state of consciousness, providing an instru-
ment of analysis and evaluation that enabled poets to
explore the roots of the self and of society. It has been
noted that dreams, by their nature, can express a sense
of fragmentation, a loss of continuity between the self
and the outside world since they operate by juxtaposi-
tion, distortion, displacement, condensation, and
seeming incoherence. Recently, scholars have argued
that the dream format was used by English poets in the
second half of the 14th century to express alienation, a
sense of lost authority or a search for connections.
See also ALLEGORY, MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY.
FURTHER READING
Brown, Peter, ed. Reading Dreams: The Interpretation of
Dreams from Chaucer to Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1999.
Spearing, A. C. Medieval Dream-Poetry. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1976.
Louise SylvesterDUNBAR, WILLIAM (CA. 1460–1520) Like
many of the MIDDLE SCOTS poets, William Dunbar was
not well known during his life. His reputation grew
considerably in the 18th and 19th centuries, particu-
larly because he was championed by Sir Walter Scott.
Like his counterparts, Dunbar was heavily infl uenced
by GEOFFREY CHAUCER and is known for his mastery of
IAMBIC PENTAMETER, but he also wrote alliterative verse
in his career (see ALLITERATION). Dunbar’s poetry shows
that he was also infl uenced by his Middle Scots compa-
triot, ROBERT HENRYSON, as well as by contemporary
French poetry.
Very little is known about Dunbar’s life other than
that he was probably a student at St. Andrews and that
he was certainly a court poet; almost all of his poetry
was written in the period between 1500 and 1513,
which coincides with James IV’s reign. His death is
referred to in Sir David Lindsay’s poem Testament of the
Papyngo. While many contemporary poets inserted
autobiographical details into their poetry, Dunbar only
seldom gave any personal information, making him
perhaps the most enigmatic of the four major Middle
Scots poets. Of all of these makars, or “makers,” Dun-
bar was the most stylistically and generically versatile,152 DUNBAR, WILLIAM