Fifteenth-Century English Dream Visions

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.