Chaucer's dream visions & the mystical traditions of Islam. (c2011)

Abstract

Dreaming is a form of sleeping experience that simulates waking experience: it occupies the whole field of consciousness and is extended in the dimensions of space and time; but it has a number of characteristics that differentiate it from being awake. Though sometimes extremely vivid, dreaming is in general elusive, and less easily remembered than waking experience. Further, it is not under the control of our conscious will: we cannot decide whether to dream or what to dream, and when dreaming we seem to be less in command of what happens than in waking life. Two features of dreaming have relevance here, the use of dreams as frames for or events in fictional narratives. First, dreaming feels charged with significance: unlike events in waking life, nothing in a dream seems to be trivial or unimportant. Second, dreaming does not make sense in the same way as waking life (Spearing). I believe the connection between Chaucer’s dream visions and the mystical/Sufi way of looking at dreams can be made because of the similarities between the two. Chaucer was writing at a time when the Church had strong influence and therefore his writing had a moral vein running throughout, as well as a satirical aspect that mocked issues/people that he didn’t necessarily approve of. It is my intention to show that by using a mystical/Sufi approach to his dream visions that Chaucer’s dream visions had a moral religious vein (rather than an attitude that promoted Church obedience) that was more dominant than what meets the eye. This connection is worthwhile because it will provide my readers with a new way of looking at, and analyzing, Chaucer’s dream visions and in this way, provide new interpretations and meanings to be considered. I intend to do this by looking at each of Chaucer’s dream visions and their more orthodox interpretation, followed by looking at some examples of Eastern literature and their accepted interpretation. After this, I intend to examine the common elements between the two areas and see how they can both be examined from a mystical/Sufi point of view.