Dreams of the end : apocalypticism in fourteenth and fifteenth century English secular vision poems

Secular dream vision poems derived from religious dream vision poems which were apocalyptic in nature. Because of this, many elements of the apocalyptic remain in the secular poems. While characteristics like images, topoi, characters and settings remain constant throughout the dream vision genre, the central purpose of using the work for social commentary breaks down in the later works because they are derived from secular works of the thirteenth century instead of directly from the apocalyptic visions. Chapter One of this study provides background to dream visions and apocalypticism. First, the chapter looks at dream theory from ancient to medieval times as well as the function of dreams and visions in both religious and secular works of the Middle Ages. The next section of the chapter discusses the characteristics of apocalyptic literature as well as the early apocalypses that influenced medieval literature. The chapter concludes by looking briefly at works relevant to but outside the scope of this study. Chapter two deals with the presence of apocalypticism in the dream visions of the most important English poet of the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer. The study notes not only the presence of apocalyptic characteristics in the poems, but also discusses the how Chaucer has adapted the crisis-judgment-vindication pattern of apocalypticism in each of his poems. Chapter Three discusses the anonymous secular vision poems contemporary with Chaucer. These works, Wynnere and Wastour, The Parlement of the Thre Ages, and Mum and the Sothsegger, also use apocalyptic characteristics to emphasize the social commentaries of their poems. The final chapter looks at the vision poems of the late Middle Ages, specifically those by John Lydgate (1370-1450), James I of Scotland (1394-1437), William Dunbar (c. 1460-1520), and John Skelton (1460-1529). This chapter will demonstrate the breakdown of the original apocalyptic purpose of dream visions as the poems move to personal, instead of social, crises or ignore the crisis-judgment-vindication pattern altogether. It concludes by speculating about the causes of the decline of the dream vision genre after the Middle Ages.