dream allegory

dream allegory, allegorical tale presented in the narrative framework of a dream. Especially popular in the Middle Ages, the device made more acceptable the fantastic and sometimes bizarre world of personifications and symbolic objects characteristic of medieval allegory. Well-known examples of the dream allegory include the first part of Roman de la rose (13th century); Chaucer’s Book of the Duchesse (1369/70); Pearl (late 14th century); Piers Plowman (c. 1362–c. 1387), attributed to William Langland; William Dunbar’s The Thissil and the Rois and The Goldyn Targe (early 16th century); and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).