The Hero’s Dream. The Oneiric Experience as a Modalizing “Subject” Between Chivalric Romance and Renaissance Epic Poem

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the role and functioning of the epiphanic dream in the epic genre. Using the descriptive categories and analytical procedures of narrative semiotics, we will consider oneiric manifestation as “contractual structures” that exert their persuasive force on the character and modify his modal competence. After identifying some constants (possible layering in levels, polarization between a manipulative moment and a sanctioning moment) within the Homeric corpus, the investigation focuses on literary renderings of the epiphanic dream in Francesco Cieco Da Ferrara’s Mambriano (1509) and in Gian Giorgio Trissino’s Italia Liberata da’ Goti (1548).