Dreams, Visions, And The Rhetoric Of Authority - DigiNole (PDF)

Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Dreams, Visions, and the Rhetoric of Authority John T. Bickley Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]  THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DREAMS, VISIONS, AND THE RHETORIC OF AUTHORITY By JOHN T. BICKLEY A Dissertation submitted to the Program of Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013  ii John Bickley defended this dissertation on November 29, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were: David Johnson Professor Directing Dissertation Matthew Goff University Representative Francois Dupuigrenet Desroussilles Committee Member Nancy de Grummond Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.  iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION – DREAMS, VISIONS, AND THE RHETORIC OF AUTHORITY Dreams and Authority ..........................................................................................................1 Emphasis and Scope ............................................................................................................6 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 – THE AUTHORITY OF FORM: DREAM AND VISION GENRES Authenticity and Artifice ...................................................................................................15 Authentic Dreams and Visions ..........................................................................................18 Literary Dreams and Visions .............................................................................................22 Dream Sequences ...................................................................................................22 Dream Visions .......................................................................................................23 Macrobius’ Five Categories and Kruger’s Three-Fold Taxonomy ....................................30 CHAPTER 2 – AUTHORIZING STRATEGIES IN THE DREAMS AND VISIONS OF DANIEL Introduction ........................................................................................................................33 The Cultural Authority of the Book of Daniel .......................................................34 The Daniel Tradition ..............................................................................................36 Historical and Literary Appropriations ..................................................................39 Intersecting Modes and Genres ..............................................................................40 The Struggle for Cultural Authority ......................................................................43 The Dream Sequences of Daniel (Chapters 1-6) ...............................................................45 The Intellectual Elite ..............................................................................................45 Delegitimizing the Competition .............................................................................47 Dreaming of Authority ...........................................................................................49 Authorizing Humility and Humiliation ..................................................................50 The Power of the Written Word.............................................................................52 The Apocalyptic Visions of Daniel (Chapters 7-12) .........................................................54 The Socio-Political Power of Apocalypse .............................................................54 Universality v. Historical Moment: Apocalyptic Symbolism and Ex Eventu Prophecy ................................................................................................................56 The Rhetoric of Numbers.......................................................................................59 Fear and Trembling: The Dreamer’s Authorizing Response .................................60 A Cryptic Climax: Daniel’s Final Assertion of Authority .....................................62 Conclusion: Daniel’s Hierarchy of Authority ....................................................................63  iv CHAPTER 3 – MACROBIUS: ESTABLISHING THE AUTHORITATIVE PHILOSOPHICAL FORM Introduction ........................................................................................................................65 Establishing the Authoritative Philosophical Form ...............................................65 The Arbiters of Authority ......................................................................................66 Defending the Dream Vision .............................................................................................71 In Defense of (Dream) Fiction (Ch. I and II) .........................................................71 Formal Authority: The Dream Vision as the Perfect Philosophical Form .............78 Defining the Dream Vision ................................................................................................80 A Question of Authoirty: Macrobius’ Five Categories of Dreams ........................80 Illegitimate Origins: Insomnium and Visum ..........................................................83 The Three Authoritative Dreams: Oraculum, Visio, and Somnium .......................86 Aggregate Authority: The Dream Categories Applied ..........................................89 Conclusion: Authoritative Dreamers and the Omnipresent Veil .......................................91 CHAPTER 4 – JULIANOF NORWICH: THE AUTHORIZING DISCOURSES OF THE MEDIEVAL VISIONARY Introduction: Authenticity and Medieval Visionaries ........................................................93 The Rhetoric of the Unlettyrde ..........................................................................................97 Aligning the Will .............................................................................................................101 Julian’s Three Desires .........................................................................................101 Julian’s Sanctity ...................................................................................................105 Aligning the Intellect .......................................................................................................106 Intellectus and Ratio ............................................................................................106 The Divinely Sanctioned/Sanctifying Editing Process ........................................109 Conclusion: Authorizing Discourses ...............................................................................111 CHAPTER 5 – FRACTURED AUTHORITY: CHAUCER’S IRONIC DREAM VISION Introduction: Fractured Authority in the Fourteenth Century ..........................................113 The Ironic Dream Vision .................................................................................................119 Ambiguity and the Ironic Dream Vision .............................................................119 Chaucer’s Formative Form ..................................................................................122 The House of Fame ..........................................................................................................125 The Proem: Deference and Dismissal ..................................................................125 The First Invocation: Confusing the Heathen and the Heavenly .........................133 The First Dream Account: Borrowed Legitimacy and Literary Digression ........136 Book II: Hybridity, Autobiographical Parody, and “Lewed” Language .............139 Book III: Illusion and Allusion ............................................................................145 The Conclusion(?): Indeterminate “Auctorite” ....................................................147  v CONCLUSION – THE RHETORIC OF AUTHORITY ...........................................................149 APPENDIX – DREAM AND VISION GENRES ......................................................................156 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................157 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................168  vi ABSTRACT DREAMS, VISIONS, AND THE RHETORIC OF AUTHORITY Authors’ uses of dreams and visions in literature inherently involve questions about the text’s access to (or distance from) higher (or lower) authorities. Whether including a brief dream sequence within a larger narrative or framing a narrative within a dream, authors often depict the ultimate sources of their texts’ dreams and visions as standing outside the rational mind of man. Unless intending them for ironic effect, authors typically present their literary dreams and visions as incorporeal, otherworldly, revelatory—transcending the thoughts of the day and providing (usually transformative) insight into not only the past and present, but, prevalently, the future. These dream elements inherently link literary texts to a “non-literary” or non-fictional tradition: “authentic” prophetic and visionary texts. The literary mode imitates the authentic, which claims access to divine sources outside of the temporal (present and past) strictures of knowledge. The reader inevitably connects (whether consciously or unconsciously) the literary revelatory dream or vision to the generally more authoritative tradition of prophetic and visionary writing. This “borrowed” sense of authority elevates the overtly literary fiction, producing the impression of transcendent knowledge. The present study is predicated upon two underlying arguments: 1) that dreams and visions in literature frequently function as authorizing devices and 2) that texts involving dreams and visions draw upon numerous conventional strategies for both affirming and complicating (especially in the ironic dream vision) the text’s authority. My method for exploring this thesis involves four case studies in which I synthesize recent dream and vision scholarship, consider historical context and intertextual dialogue, and perform my own close reading of relevant  vii passages. While I address the diverse issues intrinsic to dream literature—especially their complex historical, philosophical, and spiritual contexts—I explore these connections and sub- arguments primarily in terms of authority and textual self-authorization. While many scholars have noted the importance of authority in dream literature—Steven Kruger, J. J. Collins, A. C. Spearing, Kathryn Lynch, Jessica Barr, J. Stephen Russell, Michael St. John, among many others—the present study takes this broad concept of authority and applies it in a more specific and comprehensive manner than previous scholarship. I have chosen four key texts in the history of Western dream and vision literature that 1) are paradigmatic representations of their respective genres and 2) exercised a high degree of influence on that formal tradition. Chapter 1 presents a taxonomy of dream and vision genres, emphasizing the role of authority in their distinctions. Chapter 2 focuses on the issue of cultural authority in the Book of Daniel (the dream sequence and the apocalyptic vision in the Jewish tradition). Chapter 3 discusses the importance of authority in Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio (Neoplatonic dream theory and the classical dream vision). Chapter 4 analyzes authorizing devices in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Love (the medieval mystic vision). Chapter 5 is a close reading of the ironic treatment of authority in Chaucer’s House of Fame (the medieval ironic dream vision). These four works from four distinct traditions feature several conventional “authorizing devices” that characterize the dream and vision genres they represent. While some of these strategies remain particular to one genre and/or era, others clearly cross periods, cultures, and traditions.  1 INTRODUCTION DREAMS, VISIONS, AND THE RHETORIC OF AUTHORITY Dreams and Authority Dreams have empowered human consciousness and action for thousands of years in recorded experience. In literature, the incorporation of dreams and visions has transcended cultures, eras, and genres. Until the last century, where psychoanalytic and physiological studies have sought to trace dreams and visions solely to psychological and cognitive sources—the inner workings of the unconscious and the self-regulating operations of the brain—most texts in the history of Western literature have portrayed dreams and visions as emanating from supernatural sources and serving a higher function. The vast majority of these fictional dreams and visions act as bridges to other realms, windows into a supernatural reality, offering the dreamers/visionaries (and their readers) access to knowledge beyond human or rational or worldly limits. In his comprehensive study of the conception of dreams and dreaming in the Middle Ages, Steven F. Kruger succinctly summarizes this traditional conception of dreams: For most of its long history, the dream has been treated not merely as an internally- motivated phenomenon (although as we shall see, such explanations of dreaming have their own ancient roots), but as an experience strongly linked to the realm of divinity: dreams were often thought to foretell the future because they allowed the human soul access to a transcendent, spiritual reality.1 These supernatural experiences outside/beyond the mundane—whether in relation to the world of the readers or the diegetic world of the characters—enable authors to break away from the linear narrative, achieve important insight into characters’ motivations, and leap into fantastic 1 Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 2.  2 landscapes and situations. However, the most important benefit of incorporating dreams and visions in literature rises above narrative advantage: Dreams and visions heighten a text’s sense of authority. The transcendent authority a culture associates with authentic dreams—popular, religious, philosophical, superstitious—transfers directly to its manifestations in fiction. For this reason, those fictional works that incorporate dreams and visions have a greater cultural import, a greater cultural authority that elevates the text to a higher plane of discourse. Gilgamesh dreams of a meteor plummeting from the Heavenly Dome, the divine realm of An, marking the turning point of his reign from a tyrannical king to a mythic hero—who holds in his hand, if only for a moment, the key to eternity. Jacob dreams of a stairway stretching to the heavens; from the heights, the Lord speaks to Jacob of his divine plan for his chosen people and Jacob’s pivotal role in their ascension. Joseph dreams of his brothers’ bundles of grain bowing to his own, followed by a dream of the stars and moon submitting to him. These dreams prove to be the catalyst for his betrayal to the Egyptian slave trade—and subsequent rise to power. Nebuchadnezzar dreams of an awful statue, a towering yet fragile colossus; only Daniel, through a vision of the Lord, can discern its divine portent. Scipio Aemilianus dreams of his revered grandfather, Scipio Africanus, who reveals to him the humbling hierarchy of the Neoplatonic universe. Julian is granted visions of God’s overwhelming sufferings, love, and power. Joseph of Galilee dreams that an angel of the Lord tells him his wife will bear a son—and he will be the divine salvation of his people and the king of an everlasting kingdom. John dreams of the final days, when the leaders of the nations will meet the true authority of the heavens. Dreams as markers of divine impartation of worldly authority. Dreams foretelling the rise of individuals to power, of nations to authoritative positions in history. Dreams denouncing  3 figures of authority—and dreams announcing the messiah. Dreams imparted to grant authority, deny authority, proclaim the restoration of true authority.... From the earliest within-the-story dream sequences of Mesopotamia to 21st century psycho-analytic filmic dream visions, the essential purpose of incorporating a dream or vision in a text often centers around authority—namely the author’s desire to imbue the text with a sense of greater authority. This “authorizing strategy” requires the impression of the text’s/author’s access to the transcendent, authoritative knowledge associated with authentic divinely imparted dreams and visions. The major early literary threads at work in the fabric of Western Civilization, though diverse and often divergent in conventional elements, similarly value and employ dreams in their narratives. While most of these traditions find similar narrative opportunities in dream elements—such as plausible breaks from the constraints of linear plots, imaginative jaunts into more fantastic settings and modes, and convenient means of revealing, in a dramatic and imagistic form, the motives and psychological struggles of the characters—dreams have maintained a “higher” significance in the narrative legacy of the Western traditions. Dreams are, first and foremost, authorizing devices.2 Whether a brief dream sequence within a larger narrative, a narrative framed by a dream, or an apocalyptic vision, authors’ incorporations of dreams and visions in literature inherently involve questions about the text’s access to (or distance from) higher (or lower) authorities.3 2 Many dream scholars make similar arguments, especially Russell, Spearing, Kruger, and Collins (in regard to apocalyptic visions). 3 See the second chapter of this study for a comprehensive categorization of the diverse dream and vision genres. For other similar classifications, see Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages; J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984); Stephen J. Russell, The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1988); A. C. Spearing, Medieval Dream-Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Peter Dinzelbacher, Vision and Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter. Stuttgart, 1981; Michael D. Cherniss, Boethian Apocalypse: Studies in Middle English Vision Poetry.  4 From the earliest literature to the Early Middle Ages, in both the polytheistic and monotheistic Western traditions, dreams in literature have almost invariably been ascribed to supernatural sources.4 Whether heavenly or infernal, the ultimate sources of literary dreams are often depicted as standing outside the bodily or worldly or rational mind of man. Unless intended for ironic effect, as in many of Chaucer’s satiric projects, dreams are portrayed as incorporeal, otherworldly, revelatory—transcending the thoughts of the day and providing (usually transformative) insight not only into the past and present, but, most prevalently, the future. The emphasis on future-oriented dreams is almost ubiquitous, spanning diverse periods and traditions.5 From a purely literary perspective, intra-narrative visions of the future—dreams that predict events that will be fulfilled within the story itself, like the dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness in Daniel6—produce a pleasure similar to that offered by narrative flash-forwards popular in modern storytelling, through which the audience or reader might enjoy the twists and turns that seem, often impossibly, to lead to the predicted (or “pre-visioned”) outcome. As in the Oedipal intra-narrative prophecies, the audience delights in the ironic circumstances, attempted circumventions, and ultimate circularity of the plot.7 The implied “argument” of an intra-narrative dream prediction is an ordered, divinely orchestrated universe where all events build to predetermined outcomes, thus confirming the ultimate temporal authority of God/the gods. Norman, OK: 1987; Hans Robert Jauss, �Theo�� of Ge��es a�d Medie�al Lite�atu�e.� I� his Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Trans. Timothy Bahti (Minneapolis, 1982) Pp. 76-109. 4 Kruger addresses the issue of authority several times throughout Dreaming in the Middle Ages; see especially Ch. 1-3. 5 As Kruger points out, even Freud discusses dreams in terms of their relationship to the (psychologically predetermined) future (3). 6 See the chapter on Daniel below. 7 C. S. Lewis discusses the readerly pleasures of the fulfillment of within-the-narrati�e p�edi�tio�s i� his essa� �O� Fi�tio�.�  5 Though this sense of inevitability is one of the great joys of intra-narrative prophetic dream sequences, it is not the only, or even dominant, reason for the popularity of prophetic literary dream elements. The most notable effect of employing dream sequences or framing devices is the link these elements provide to a “non-literary” or non-fictional tradition: “authentic” prophetic and visionary texts and utterances. While the labels “authentic” and “non- literary” are imprecise,8 the degree of seriousness with which the culture takes this tradition is the most consistent point of distinction: the authentic prognostications, prophecies, and visions of the shaman/oracle/soothsayer/visionary generally carry a greater weight within the culture than more clearly artificial, narrative-focused, “literary” dreams and visions.9 Questions of the authority of “authentic” texts are further complicated of course as one moves from one culture, religion, or period to another. Regardless, the general distinction remains between those works that purport to be true visions/dreams and those that promote themselves as overtly literary. Despite the gap between these two broad categories of texts, the “authentic” traditions serve as important cultural referents to their more overtly artificial, literary cousins. The access to divine sources required to step outside of the temporal (present and past) strictures of knowledge in the authentic mode carries over to some degree in the literary. The audience or reader inevitably connects (whether consciously or unconsciously) the literary predictive dream to the generally more authoritative tradition of the prophetic and visionary writing. This 8 Jessica Barr provides an insightful discussion of both the inadequacy and usefulness of the distinctions of �authe�ti�� a�d �lite�a��� �isio�a�� a�d d�ea� ��iti�g i� he� i�t�odu�tio� to Willing to Know God (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2010), especially pp. 35. See the chapter on dream and vision genres below. 9 Several studies discussed below address the social role of the mystic vision, revelation, or apocalypse in the Western tradition. See Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Katharina M. Wilson, Medieval Women Writers (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984); J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity a�d �Je�ish Apo�al�pti� agai�st Its Helle�isti� Nea� Easte�� E��i�o��e�t.� Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1975), 220:27-36; and Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages.  6 “borrowed” sense of authority elevates the overtly literary fiction, lifting it, even if only subtly, heavenward. While many scholars have noted the importance of authority in dream literature—Kruger, Collins, Spearing, Barr, Lynch, Russell, among many others10—the present study takes this broad concept of authority and applies it in a more specific and comprehensive manner than previous scholarship to several key texts in the history of Western dream literature, namely the Book of Daniel, Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Love, and Chaucer’s House of Fame. These texts are not only highly influential in their respective traditions, they serve as paradigms of diverse dream and vision genre(s): the dream sequence (Daniel); the apocalypse (Daniel); Neoplatonic dream theory and the classical dream vision (Macrobius’ Commentary); the divine vision (Julian’s Revelations); and the ironic dream vision (Chaucer’s House of Fame). These diverse works and traditions feature several conventional “authorizing devices” that characterize the dream and vision genres they represent. As I will attempt to highlight throughout, while some of these strategies remain particular to one genre and/or era, others clearly cross periods, cultures, and traditions. Emphasis and Scope This study arose from my readings in medieval dream visions, where the authority, or lack thereof, of the dream is often highlighted in a particularly emphatic manner. Dream visions, or framed dream narratives, reach their peak in both popularity and formal maturity in Western 10 The principal texts to which I am referring are: Steven F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages; J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity; A. C. Spearing, Medieval Dream- Poetry; Jessica Barr, Willing to Know God; Kathryn L. Lynch, The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form; Stephen J. Russell, The English Dream Vision: Anatomy of a Form.  7 civilization in the High and Late Middle Ages.11 The literary, scholarly, and popular religious interest in dreams and dreaming intersect in this period in a unique way in Western history. Popular visionaries, such as Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Marguerite d’Oingt (c. 1240- 1310), Gertrude of Helfta (c. 1256-1301), Margery Kempe (c. 1373-1438), and Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-1416)—whose Revelations of Love is the central focus of one of the following chapters—strengthened the cultural valence of dreams and contributed new conventional standards. By the thirteenth century, scholastic circles had appropriated and adapted Neoplatonic and Patristic dream theories into their own theoretical models.12 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, widely read authors such as de Lorris and de Meun, Dante13, Langland, and Chaucer helped solidify the dream vision as a far-reaching and much imitated form, second only to the romance in the Late Middle Ages. In works like the Romance of the Rose, Piers Plowman and House of Fame, the reliability of the dreamer, the purpose and accuracy of the dream account, and the truth of the arguments and revelations within are often deliberately called into question. The handling of authority in these texts raised a general question for me: How do other dream and vision traditions handle authority? What techniques or devices do they employ in either solidifying or undermining the sense of authority in their texts? And to what degree are medieval authors engaging with, answering, mimicking, or mocking these techniques and devices? 11 Usi�g Di�zel�a�he��s stud� �Visions and Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter, pp. 13-28), Lynch highlights some illu�i�ati�g statisti�s: �A��o�di�g to a �e�e�t �o�se��ati�e �ou�t, o�e� ��� �isio�s �e�e ��itte� f�o� the si�th century through the fifteenth, if one does not distinguish between literary and nonliterary visions. The concentration is even higher for the years after 1100, when about 70 percent of all visions and 90 percent of the lite�a�� o�es �e�e p�o�a�l� �o�posed� �L���h, The High Medieval Dream Vision, p. 1). 12 The �ost s�ste�ati� a�al�sis of this he�itage is K�uge��s Dreaming in the Middle Ages. 13 Including Dante among the imitators and innovators of the dream vision is not as cut and dried as the others listed here, but, as will be discussed below, his Commedia, while not employing a traditional dream frame, nonetheless takes up many of the conventions and themes of dream visions—and, as is the mode of Dante, ingeniously expands upon and complicates them. Other scholars have also included the Commedia among the genre; in The High Medieval Dream Vision, Lynch labels it a �philosophi�al �isio�� �he� �a�e fo� a su�ge��e of dream vision) along with those of Alain de Lille, Jean de Meun, and Gower.