Dreams and Allegory in Middle English Poetry- Piers Plowman and Pearl Amelia Coen College

‘Why that is an avision,/ And why this is a revelacion,/ Why this a drem, why that a sweven, And noght to every man lyche even;/ Why this a fantome, why these oracles.’ Trinity 2016.

With the quotation above, Geoffrey Chaucer relates the act of dreaming to acquiring a greater understanding through his a,a,b,b,c rhyme scheme that emphasises ‘avision’ (meaning dream) and ‘revelacion’ (meaning revelation, or increased understanding) in the first and second lines. The dream genre is an apt mode for discussing the problems of human epistemology in relation to complex Christian concepts, particularly due to its allowance for allegorical images to be interrogated, nuanced, and fragmented. In both Pearland Piers Plowman, the poets use allegorical images to the inability for earthly humans to understand vast divine concepts. In Pearl the image of the ‘prvy perle’ is used to discuss purity, whereas The Tree of Charity in Piers Plowman is used to discuss charity. In both poems, the development of the allegories (which can be split into three distinct stages: diagrammatic, active, dynamic) can be used to map the dreamer/readers understanding (also split into three stages: personal, spiritual, historical/paradoxical) of the Christian...