Exploring Chaucer’s Use of Dream Motif In Geoffrey Chaucer’s earliest poems, Romaunt of the Rose, Book of the Duchess, and Parliament of Fowls, the dreams of the poet, are explored, thus making these poems dream motifs. A motif is defined as the main theme in an artistic or literary work; in this case, the motif is a dream. Dream motif has the very important element to be written in first person and normally follows a set of rules. It opens with the dreamer, who is typically a male, falling asleep in the midst of a natural place, such as a garden or on a hill. The dreamer then encounters a figure that will guide them through different allegorical visions. The dreamer is able to receive advise from the guide, but the outcome is not always favorable. In the end something traumatic happens and the dreamer awakens to tell about the vision either written or verbal. Therefore, Romaunt of the Rose, Book of the Duchess, and Parliament of Fowls, shows the importance of Geoffrey Chaucer’s use of dream motif in the three poems to illustrate the parallel complexity and main structural principle …show more content…
Chaucer's unique contribution to the genre, with natural settings in each poem, precisely follows the set standards for dream motifs. There is a garden where the dreamer falls asleep, experiences a dream, and awakes from it. The end of the dream motif is when the dreamer awakens into the reality marked by the resolution of the poet to write the dream down as a poem. While his dream vision accounts display truth, Chaucer alters the dream vision form by adding different views of love. He includes altered instances within his dream visions. The inclusion of different time periods within his texts allows Chaucer to create poetry in which he allows the reader to journey into his time through vision while relying on dream
Virgil’s Aeneid, one of the masterpieces of Roman literature and the founding epic of the greatest empire in the Classical world, showcases many techniques of typical Roman poetry. The poetic traditions handed down from the Homeric epics are clearly shown throughout the epic, and one aspect of this literary tradition is the use of dreams throughout the epic. Three of the central characters in the epic - Aeneas, Dido, and Turnus - were all chronologically first introduced in a dream. These dream sequences allow Vergil to introduce characters from a different perspective, but dreams also serve as a method for Vergil to make prophecies and admonish characters for their actions without breaking the realism of the epic. The most prominent dream
The fantastic tale “Was It a Dream?” by Guy de Maupassant is a story narrated from the first point of view, in which the main character, who remains anonymous, describes his desperation and overwhelming grief since the loss of his loved one. He also relates a supernatural event he experienced, while in the cemetery, in which he finds out the truth about his significant other’s feelings but refuses to accept it, or at least tries to ignore it. Maupassant’s readers may feel sympathy towards the narrator as they perceive throughout the story his tone of desperation, and are able to get to the conclusion that he was living a one-sided relationship. Maupassant achieves these effects in the readers through the use of figures of speech, like anonymity, symbolism and imagery, and the structured he employed in the story.
By the use of poetic techniques, Solway successfully represents his unrequited love in the poem The Dream as bewildering and hard to accept. Through Solway’s figurative
Color, for writers through the ages, has been a telling element. A Midsummer Night’s Dream should be no exception to this element. The characters of the story tell a tale of magic; complete with fairies, potions, and a donkey’s head. Each of these effects brings enchantment to the story, charm that can not necessarily be employed naturally on a Middle English stage. The play, itself, talks on the magic that is A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Many characters in Shakespeare had dreams. Romeo dreamed of true love, Tybalt dreamed of social power and the Montagues’ demise, and Friar Lawrence dreamed of a peaceful and united Verona. All of those dreams lead to tragedy for the characters. With this, Shakespeare implied that, perhaps, dreams aren’t all as good as fairy tales make them seem to
In conclusion, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare effectively uses the motifs of the seasons, the moon, and dreams to show that love, irrationality, and disobedience directly cause chaos. By calling to mind the seasons in unnatural order, describing the moon behaving strangely, and discussing the dualistic, irrational nature of dreams, Shakespeare effectively evokes a sense of chaos and disorder. Linking each of these motifs to the themes of love, irrationality, and disobedience allows Shakespeare to illustrate the disarray that is bound to result from any romance.
In summation Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a story that mocks the church, shows us class separation and uses a language which may today be lost to us. But it has stood the test of time and showed us a pilgrimage of the century that to this day is still a good read.
The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer’s meaning. The Clerk’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. The philosophical perception of fate is carried throughout both the dramas, enacting to drive the plot forward. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses the fairies to depict a magical setting, symbolizing beauty, love and contentment.
Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales presents a frame story written at the end of the 14th century. It narrates the story of a group of pilgrims who participate in a story-telling contest that they made up to entertain each other while they travel to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Because of this, some of the tales become particularly attractive for they are written within a frame of parody which, as a style that mocks genre, is usually achieved by the deliberate exaggeration of some aspects of it for comic effect. Chaucer uses parody to highlight some aspects of the medieval society that presented in an exaggerated manner, not only do they amuse the readers, but also makes them reflect on them. He uses the individual parody of each tale to create a satirical book in which the behaviours of its characters paint an ironic and critical portrait of the English society at that time. Thus, the tales turn satirical, ironic, earthy, bawdy, and comical. When analysing the Knight’s and the Miller’s tale, one can realise how Chaucer mocks the courtly love convention, and other social codes of behaviour typical of the medieval times.
In today’s society, the concept of dreaming and dreams, in general, has been featured in a variety of different mediums, such as literature, film and even music. While the mediums of film and music are both prime examples of this concept, the medium of literature, on the other hand, contains a much more diverse set of examples pertaining to dreams and dreaming. One key example is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the portrayal of dreams, in general, plays a prominent role in Shakespeare’s play, the exploration of many aspects of nature, allows readers to believe that dreams are merely connected to somewhat unconventional occurrences.
The Canterbury Tales examines many important qualities of human nature. Chaucer purposely mocks the faults in his characters, and shows the hypocrisy and deceitfulness ...
Hieatt, Constance B. The Realism of Dream Visions: The Poetic Exploitation of the Dream-Experience in Chaucer and his Contemporaries Mouton & Co. 1967.
...eveals insecurities of him in the process while that itself tells us more about the popular culture in this time. Chaucer, along with many of the other pilgrims attempts to place themselves in a socially desirable or even superior position. With the Narrator having the responsibility of articulating the tales to us in a coherent fashion, he might feel pressure to present himself as all-knowing or superior to his companions rather than show us an honest and unbiased point of view. After all, he is telling the story; the Narrator can ultimately choose to tell us whatever he pleases. The Narrator plays the role of telling tales and providing the groundwork for this pilgrimage story, but since his ideas and opinions are designed in such a particular way; he indirectly tells us so much more about not only about the pilgrimage but of this time period’s culture as a whole.
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.