IMC 2014: Sessions
Session 735: Visions, Voices, and Other Hallucinatory Experiences in the Middle Ages, I: Narratives
Tuesday 8 July 2014, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | 'Hearing the Voice' Project, Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University |
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| Organiser: | Hilary Powell, Department of English Studies, Durham University |
| Moderator/Chair: | Corinne Saunders, Centre for Medical Humanities / Department of English Studies, Durham University |
| Paper 735-a | Visions For the Sick and Disabled: Encounters with Angels and Saints in English Hagiography, c. 700-1200 (Language: English) Index terms: Hagiography, Medicine, Mentalities |
| Paper 735-b | Unforgettable Visions: Prophecy in Medieval Romance (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine, Mentalities |
| Paper 735-c | Visions and Dreams in 12th-Century Narrative Histories of the Crusades (Language: English) Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities |
| Abstract | In today's clinical culture, hearing a voice no one else can hear is considered a pathological symptom of psychosis, yet during the Middle Ages the experience of seeing visions or hearing voices was, to a large extent, socially and culturally integrated, particularly within religious contexts. This session explores how hallucinatory experiences were described, regarded, and explained in medieval literary narratives. The papers will examine a variety of genres, from hagiography to crusade histories and medieval romance and discuss themes such as visions and spiritual identity, prophesy, dreaming, and the relationship between visions and the imagination. |