Dreams, Visions, and the Rhetoric of Authority

In Dreams, Visions, and the Rhetoric of Authority , John Bickley explores the ways dreams and visions in literature function as authorizing devices, both affirming and complicating a text’s authority. After providing a framework for categorizing the diverse genres and modes of dream and vision texts, Bickley demonstrates how the theme of authority and strategies for textual self-authorization play out in four highly influential works: the Book of Daniel, Macrobius’s Commentary on the Dream of Scipio , Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Love , and Chaucer’s Hous of Fame .