Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Tant sainte chose: For a New Discourse of the Grail
- 1 This is not the One: Identity, Abjection and méconnaissance in the Perlesvaus
- 2 Falling out with God: The Discursive Inconsistency of La Queste del Saint Graal
- 3 Remissio Peccatorum: Relocating the Sins of the Grail Hero
- 4 Dead to the World: Dreaming of Life and Death on the Quest of the Holy Grail
- Conclusion: ‘Si avoit son tens trespassé’: The Final Sacrifice of the Grail Hero?
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Dead to the World: Dreaming of Life and Death on the Quest of the Holy Grail
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Tant sainte chose: For a New Discourse of the Grail
- 1 This is not the One: Identity, Abjection and méconnaissance in the Perlesvaus
- 2 Falling out with God: The Discursive Inconsistency of La Queste del Saint Graal
- 3 Remissio Peccatorum: Relocating the Sins of the Grail Hero
- 4 Dead to the World: Dreaming of Life and Death on the Quest of the Holy Grail
- Conclusion: ‘Si avoit son tens trespassé’: The Final Sacrifice of the Grail Hero?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Tout commence par l'apparition du spectre
Derrida, Spectres de MarxPerhaps the most renowned of Freud's dream cases, and certainly that which has attracted the keenest attention from Freud's own interpreters, is the ‘Dream of the Burning Child’. For all the critical scrutiny that this dream, and the haunting rebuke of the eponymous child, ‘Father, can't you see I'm burning?’, has received, there remains a certain mysterious obscurity to the case, and especially its unexplained origin: the dream is recounted at several removes and Freud admits that ‘its actual source is still unknown to me’. The image of a dead child lying on a bed surrounded by candles, watched over by an elderly guardian whilst the father sleeps fitfully in an adjoining room undeniably carries strong resonances of a medieval death. My intention in this chapter is to explore ways in which the scenario presented by Freud, and Lacan's response to it, can be transposed, through the Lacanian discourse of the Analyst, on to two dreams of ‘suspended subjectivity’ from the Old French Grail romances. Whilst the content of the dream can hold both interest and significance, I will argue that the form that the dream takes, particularly its retelling in narrative form, warrants particular attention. Whilst the notion of ‘suspended subjectivity’ is explicitly presented through an encounter with the Grail in the Queste, the Perlesvaus is more circumspect in its depiction of a burlesque ‘pre-Quest’ offering incisive commentary on notions of identity, knowledge and power in the narrative, and especially as these are rehearsed in the dream.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Discourse for the Holy Grail in Old French Romance , pp. 122 - 148Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007