La « laide vérité ». Le rêve de Cahus revisité

Abstract

The Ugly Truth". Cahus' Dream Revisited The aim of this paper is to propose an analysis of the Cahus' Dream, a well known episode of the Perlesvaus, Arthurian romance from the 13 th century, within the context of the medieval dream theories. Inspired mostly by Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio-fo cusing on the divinatory (or deceptive/ illusory) role of dreams-as well as by Tertullian's and Augustine's Christian refl ections on the relations between the soul and the sleeping body, these theories permit to shed a new light on the oneiric adventure of the squire. In fact, the author furnishes numerous clues which make it look as an insomnium or fantasma: a false, illusory dream, deprived of any deeper signifi cation. Thus, unable of uncovering some hidden, symbolic meaning, the mirage paradoxically turns out to be a material, "ugly", as the text has it, truth, blurring the border between dream and reality in a most confusing way, and setting the specifi c Perlesvaus tone from the very beginning of the romance.