Published in New Approaches in the Research on the Crown of Aragon

Keywords: Dream, Fantasy, Il Corbaccio, Matheolus, Spill, Spiritual vision.

In this article we reflect on the meaning given to dreams in medieval literature. First, the dream is distinguished in the strict sense of the vision or dream revealing spiritual guarantee, which implies a change in behavior. From the sacred texts, the Bible and the Holy Parents, is reflected that the pleasing dream comes from the divine designs, while the bad dream has its origin in the evil one. The influence of sleep is a concern for all aspects of medieval society, to the point that moralists recommend being alert and not giving way to the influence of the dangers of the night. In the literature, from the experience of the Somnium Scipionis compiled by Macrobio in the sixth book of De Republica of Ciceron, or the romanic views of the Roman de la Rose, the relations regarding content, structure, form and rhetorical resources are recurring in works such as Il Corbaccio of Boccaccio, the Livre des Lamentations of Matheolus and the Spill of Jaume Roig.