Dreaming the English Renaissance
Politics and Desire in Court and Culture
Book
Chapter
Why do dreams matter so much to us? Dreams themselves, and the way we interpret them, take us into the deepest part of our individual as well as cultural psyches. Dreams indicate to us the ways in which we are .....
Chapter
This book begins with the court of James I and ends with the reign of his predecessor Elizabeth and the execution of James’s mother. In the ways of dreams, this book has come full circle. Studying dreams, and i.....
Chapter
There were wide-ranging beliefs about dreams in early modern England. For some, at least, belief in the efficacy of dreams was the early modern version of believing one could win the lottery. One dream story cu.....
Chapter
Those in the Tudor period looked back to the previous century and reign of Henry VI and remembered times of a long minority and then a king, when he came of age, unable to rule effectively. The problems of Henr.....
Chapter
In November 1605, Guy Fawkes, under the alias John Johnson, was living in a small house adjacent to the House of Lords and was Thomas Percy’s supposed servant and caretaker. Percy had leased the house the year .....
Chapter
As we saw in the previous chapter, dreams were powerful in the belief systems of early modern English people. One of the areas where dreams had the most powerful resonances had to do with religious belief and p.....
Chapter
Early modern English dream books often discussed dreams about monarchs, both kings and queens. Andrew Seyton, the “celebrated seer of Cumberland,” suggested that if in a dream one saw the queen, one would soon .....