Title Dreams in late antiquity : studies in the imagination of a culture / Patricia Cox Miller

Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 273 pages) Contents Part I. Images and Concepts of Dreaming. Introduction --- Ch. 1. Figurations of Dream --- Ch. 2. Theories of Dreams --- Ch. 3. Interpretation of Dreams --- Ch. 4. Dreams and Therapy ---- Part II. Dreamers. Introduction --- Ch. 5. Hermas and the Shepherd --- Ch. 6. Perpetua and Her Diary of Dreams --- Ch. 7. Aelius Aristides and The Sacred Tales --- Ch. 8. Jerome and His Dreams --- Ch. 9. The Two Gregorys and Ascetic Dreaming ---- Conclusion Summary Dream interpretation was a prominent feature of the intellectual and imaginative world of late antiquity, for martyrs and magicians, philosophers and theologians, polytheists and monotheists alike. Finding it difficult to account for the prevalence of dream-divination, modern scholarship has often condemned it as a cultural weakness, a mass lapse into mere superstition. In this book, Patricia Cox Miller draws on pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources and modern semiotic theory to demonstrate the integral importance of dreams in late-antique thought and life. She argues that Graeco-Roman dream literature functioned as a language of signs that formed a personal and cultural pattern of imagination and gave tangible substance to ideas such as time, cosmic history, and the self. Miller first discusses late-antique theories of dreaming, with emphasis on theological, philosophical, and hermeneutical methods of deciphering dreams as well as the practical uses of dreams, especially in magic and the cult of Asclepius. She then considers the cases of six Graeco-Roman dreamers: Hermas, Perpetua, Aelius Aristides, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Her detailed readings illuminate the ways in which dreams provided solutions to ethical and religious problems, allowed for the reconfiguration of gender and identity, provided occasions for the articulation of ethical ideas, and altogether served as a means of making sense and order of the world. -- Publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-270) and index Notes Print version record Subject Classical literature -- History and criticism Dreams in literature. Christian literature, Early -- History and criticism Classical literature -- Psychological aspects Civilization, Greco-Roman. Philosophy, Ancient. Imagination. Philosophy -- history Imagination imagination. 18.41 classical languages: general. HISTORY -- Ancient -- General. Christian literature, Early Civilization, Greco-Roman Classical literature Classical literature -- Psychological aspects Dreams in literature Imagination Philosophy, Ancient Traum Motiv Traumdeutung Literatur Kultur Traum Dromen. Droomuitlegging. Letterkunde. Magie. Klassieke talen. Littérature chrétienne médiévale -- Histoire et critique. Littérature antique -- Thèmes, motifs. Rêves -- Dans la littérature. Littérature antique -- Histoire et critique. Civilisation classique. Philosophie antique. Littérature chrétienne primitive -- Histoire et critique. Griechenland Altertum Römisches Reich Griechisch. Latein. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780691215853 0691215855

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