Dreams, Sleep, and Shakespeare’s Genres. By Claude Fretz

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Prophetic, supernatural, or instructive dreams have several classical and medieval antecedents, but many early modern writers argued that there was little to no validity in the notion that dreams could impart special knowledge. In The Terrors of the Night, Thomas Nashe contended that such dreams were “but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy.”1 Francis Bacon asserted that tales of divine prophecies throughout history had been “by idle and crafty brains merely contrived and feigned, after the event past.”2 Shakespeare, however, saw the dramatic potential of incorporating dreams into his plays, to the extent that, as Claude Fretz argues, “representations of dreams and sleep are interwoven with Shakespeare’s conception of genre” (4). In Dreams, Sleep, and Shakespeare’s Genres, Fretz charts Shakespeare’s use of dreams and sleep from the very beginning of his career up to the “generically unclassifiable late plays” (4). Fretz places particular emphasis...