A dream vision or visio is a literary device where a dream or vision is described as revealing knowledge or truths not known in a normal waking state. This happens when someone is asleep. While dreams appear often in literature, the genre of visionary writing became popular suddenly and was especially common in early medieval Europe. In both ancient and medieval times, dream visions were often believed to come from a higher power. This type of writing returned during the Romanticism era, when dreams were seen as creative ways to explore ideas beyond what logic could explain.
The structure of this genre usually includes a narrator describing falling asleep, having a dream, and then waking up. The story is often an allegory, meaning it uses symbols to represent deeper ideas. The dream, which is the main part of the poem, is often caused by events in the narrator’s waking life mentioned earlier in the poem. The vision in the dream addresses these real-life concerns by showing imaginative and creative possibilities. During the dream, the narrator, often with help from a guide, learns new perspectives that may offer solutions to their waking problems. The poem ends with the narrator waking up and deciding to write down the dream, creating the poem itself. The dream-vision style was used in many different literatures, including European, Old Russian, medieval Latin, Muslim, Gnostic, Hebrew, and others.
Visions in medieval European literature
In the book Medieval Latin Visions, Russian scholar Boris Yarkho studies the genre of dream visions. He explains the genre by looking at its form and content. First, the genre is didactic, meaning it teaches the reader important lessons. Second, it includes a character called a "clairvoyant" (or visionary), who has two roles: to understand the vision spiritually and to connect it to things the reader can sense. Third, the genre includes physical and mental experiences, such as tiredness, hallucinations, and dreams.
The content of dream visions often describes the afterlife, ghosts, and otherworldly forces. It also includes beliefs about the end of the world, known as eschatology. Sometimes, visions also include real-world issues, like social or political events, that relate to spiritual themes.
Yarkho notes that visions have two main structures: "one-vertex" visions, which focus on a single idea, and "multi-vertex" visions, which explore many ideas, often connected to the end of the world. The structure of multi-vertex visions can be simple, traditional, or highly organized.
In The Literary Encyclopedia (1929–1939), Rosalia Shor writes about the history of medieval visions. She explains that before the 12th century, all visions were written in Latin. From the 12th century, some visions were translations, and by the 13th century, original visions began appearing in local languages. The most detailed visions were written in Latin by religious leaders, as this genre was closely linked to religious texts and church teachings.
Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered the greatest example of the medieval vision genre. It is called a detailed vision because of its storytelling and structure.
The deformation of the genre of visions
Over time, the way visions are used in European literature has changed naturally. Authors began using visions to share satirical ideas and write about current events in pamphlets. As R. O. Shor explains, starting in the 10th century, the style and messages of visions caused disagreements, especially among lower-ranking clergy and students in goliard schools. This led to visions appearing at certain times. At the same time, visions were adopted by courtly poetry written in common languages. In these works, visions took on new meanings, serving as a structure for stories that teach about love, such as "Fabliau dou dieu d'amour" (The Story of the God of Love), "Venus la déesse d'amors" (Venus — the Goddess of Love), and the famous "Roman de la Rose" by Guillaume de Lorris, which is considered an encyclopedia of courtly love.
Visions in Old Russian literature
The genre of visions was a common type of writing in Old Russian literature. This genre also influenced other types of Old Russian works. For example, Nikolai Prokofiev found that the features of visions appeared in stories, journeys, lives, signs, and many other sources.
Old Russian visions usually follow a specific structure. The story begins with a prayer that comes before a person experiences physical and mental changes, which lead to visions. The hero then sees supernatural beings who show them a "revelation" to answer a question. The hero's fear is described, followed by an explanation of the "revelation." Finally, the supernatural beings ask the hero to share what they have seen.
The images in Old Russian visions have two types: characters from Christian stories, which are clear and do not need explanation, and symbols or pictures from nature that represent old pagan beliefs. Nikolai Prokofiev studied how visions developed and compared them to dreams, a popular type of writing in ancient times.
In Old Russian epics, heroes are often gods, and this idea is usually shown through dreams.
Some scholars believe the genre of visions became less common in literature after the time of Peter the Great. Russian writer Alexander Pigin, in his book "Visions of the Other World in Russian Handwritten Books," found many texts showing that the vision genre continued in Russian handwritten works during the 19th and 20th centuries. He also noted that people know little about this genre. Pigin explained that the subject of Old Russian visions is "small eschatology," which is the study of what happens to a person's soul after death, and "big eschatology," which is the study of the end of the world.
The subject of visions is "small" (or "private") eschatology because the focus is on the afterlife of an individual.
Pigin pointed out that visions have roots in ancient beliefs about spirits and that the idea of an "other world" exists in many cultures.