Dream is a fiction of dream or daydream. The use of dream in fiction is, therefore, doubly insubstantial. In middle English poetry, the dream is used as a poetic technique, and suggests vision or imagination. Langland’s Piers Plowman and Chaucer’s own, ‘The House of Fame’, ‘The Parliament of Fowls’ and ‘Troilus and Cressida’ use the device of dreams in their respective poetry.
Dreams have always exercised the human mind. The medieval interpretations were allegorical or analogical. The psychoanalytic interpretation of Sigmund Freud and Jung have revolutionized modern thought. The view of the human mind is now radically different because of the recognition of the role and importance of the unconscious in human life and activity. Think of the waking dream, ambition or fantasy of people. Sigmund Freud and Jung, both agreed that dreaming is a meaningful product of unconscious force in the psyche with roots deep in the evolutionary biology of our species. They also agreed that dreams are valuable allies in healing people suffering from various kinds of mental illness.
Chaucer added the dream of Chanticleer to the traditional story. The conflicting interpretations by the hen and the cock are highly dramatic. More than one third of the tale is occupied by this digression or secondary plot. The dream sequence presented in line 116- 140. The cock had dreamt of a frightening beast. It was “Iyk an hound, and a wolde han maad arrest upon my body, and han had me deed’.
In other words, the hound- like beast would have seized and killed him. And so even after waking. “Yet of his look for fere almost I deye”. This fear has made him groan, and frightened Pertelote.
Chanticleer interprets his nightmare as warning against a possible danger of death. The warning prepares him, only partially, for the event, and he is able to save himself in crisis, for he keeps his wit about him. If he had not dreamt of the event, he could not have managed the crisis so well as he does. The dream is, thus an integral part of the plot and not a mere digression.
The debate on Dreams
The debate on dreams serves two artistic purposes. (a) It presents the contemporary theories on the subject and (b) the characters of the cock and hen as man and wife.
The scientific point of view is contrasted with the superstitious or popular point of view. Both seem to be half true, and Chaucer perhaps never made up his mind on the topic. However, the debate gives the presentation of the theories a human and dramatic context. This is a distinctively poetic, and contrast with the abstract manner of philosophy.
Therefore, Chaucer manipulated the characters in his serio- comic view. The self- pity of the cock is matched by what ironically looks like “heartless” attitude of the hen. And the cock too is made to transcend self- pity by the end. He woos and flatters the hen, acts like loving husband, and seems to forget his fear of the impending danger of which the dream was a premonition. After all, destiny works through character, necessity being conditional, not absolute, in such cases. Hence, the author shifted the focus from Chanticleer’s fate to his dream.
Chaucer added the dream of Chanticleer to the traditional story. The conflicting interpretations by the hen and the cock are highly dramatic. More than one third of the tale is occupied by this digression or secondary plot. The dream sequence presented in line 116- 140. The cock had dreamt of a frightening beast. It was “Iyk an hound, and a wolde han maad arrest upon my body, and han had me deed’.
In other words, the hound- like beast would have seized and killed him. And so even after waking. “Yet of his look for fere almost I deye”. This fear has made him groan, and frightened Pertelote.
Chanticleer interprets his nightmare as warning against a possible danger of death. The warning prepares him, only partially, for the event, and he is able to save himself in crisis, for he keeps his wit about him. If he had not dreamt of the event, he could not have managed the crisis so well as he does. The dream is, thus an integral part of the plot and not a mere digression.
The Literary World 