Scipioun's Drem

Alice Turner · 09 May 2000, 00:19 · from urth-v0028.mbox · original

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From: "Alice Turner" <akt at attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) Scipioun's Drem
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 00:19:32
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Nigel wrote:
>
> Alga wrote...
>
> >>I dug out Chaucer. "The Parliament of Fowls" is a charming
Valentine's
> >>Day poem. The poet has been reading Scipio Africanus...
>
> <Click!! >
>
> (What was that?  Oh no, it was the sound of Nigel switching into
Mindless
> Pedantry Mode...)
>
> Nothing to do with Crowley, and even less to do with Wolfe, but when
> Chaucer writes in "The Parlement of Foules" that he has been reading
> "Tullyus of the Drem of Scipioun", he almost certainly means that he's
been
> reading Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's "Somnium Scipionis" ("the
Dream
> of Scipio").  "Tullyus" refers to Cicero's full name: Marcus Tullius
> Cicero.

You're completely right: "Tullyus of the Drem of Scipioun."

> Not sure I'd completely agree with the notion that the narrative tour
of
> heaven and hell had completely died out by the mid-14th century...
Depends
> quite what you mean.  It long persisted as a literary trope in various
> forms, particularly in the various mutations of Renaissance epic, up
to and
> including Milton, of course, in the 17th century.
>
> But maybe you meant something more specific.

Yes, I did, sorry to be foggy. But you are once again right: post-Dante
it beome a very popular literary trope. During the thousand years that
stretched from about 400 to 1400, it was related as *truth*, however, by
a surprising number of people. That's why I made the UFO reference.

Thanks, Adam, for the page citations for LB.

-alga



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