Edited by Kathryn L. Lynch, the Norton critical edition of Dream Visions is made up of a collection
of Geoffrey Chaucer’s most celebrated prose poems and dream visions as well as
an array of his shorter works. Each poem is preceded by a little historical context
that more or less gives you the gist of what the poem is going to be about. As
the poems are written in Middle English, they can be a bit tough to fathom, but
you’ll soon find that you get used to the reading and then the literary
complexities and sophistication begins to shine out. I’m not usually one for
poetry, but Chaucer’s works prove to be more than just endless flows of
romanticism and love. There is intertextuality and metafiction that underlies
his works here, which brings this nice level of tongue-in-cheek humour and
cheekiness to the reading experience.
The four major poems that make up the
bulk of this book are The Book of the
Duchess in which the narrator dreams he’s in a garden being told a great
love tale of woe by a black night, The House
of Fame where the narrator dreams that an eagle takes him into Fame’s House
where men seek fortune and renown, The
Parliament of Fowls where the narrator dreams of a great debate between the
many species of birds about love, and The
Legend of Good Women where the narrator dreams he is charged with the task
of writing the tales of famous women who were betrayed in love.
What’s nice
about Chaucer’s work is that it is made up of recognisable patterns in
structure and form and he uses a fair amount of intertextual references that
bring a further level of meaning to the poems. Many of the dream-poems centre
on the theme of love and courtly love with Book
of the Duchess spinning a tale of woe whilst The Parliament of Fowls uses metaphor and anthropomorphism to
highlight the ridiculousness of trying to even fathom the matter.
Often written
within the first person register, his poems are rich in images and enchanting
literary sophistication and even with it being in Middle English, none of this
gets missed. Besides, there are translations in the margins and footnotes, but
it has to be said that flicking your eyes from the poems to the margins and
then back again does break up the flow of the reading experience.
Filled with
drama, romance, action, violence, love, history, and comedy, Dream Visions and Other Poems proves to
be an engaging read, once the pace and flow is established. I had to read two
of the poems for uni and read the rest recreationally and it really makes a
difference; the context in which one reads I mean. Reading the book
recreationally allowed me to really appreciate all the elements that were at
play, I could see all the beauty and richness of the verse, and I allowed
myself to be transported into the worlds of the dream visions. That’s what you want
it a book, to be transported somewhere else. It’s surprising, because I really
don’t go in for poetry, but I found this book quite engaging. Oh dear, I might
be turning.
No comments:
Post a Comment