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Micer Francisco Imperial: A Genoese-Sevillano Poet of Dream Visions

Chapter one provides a multifaceted panorama of the Genoese community in medieval Seville that helps to link Francisco Imperial, an early 15th century poet, to a group of foreigners and naturalized Castilian subjects who, despite their marginality, contributed greatly to the kingdom's emergence as a global superpower by the end of the Middle Ages. Chapter two examines materialist and scientific dream theories from the classical, medieval and contemporary periods side by side, yielding a complementary platform from which to plumb the depths of dream vision texts. The third and fourth chapters place Imperial's most important poem, his Dezir a las siete virtudes (c. 1407) within the spiritually vital literary tradition of the dream vision, a genre with roots in classical antiquity and early Christian accounts of otherworld journeys. An examination of several representative Western European, Islamic and Castilian literary dream visions in Chapter 3 and of Imperial's Dezir in Chapter 4 is grounded in the insightful theoretical perspectives on the genre developed by Kathryn Lynch, Paul Piehler and Robert McMahon. The fourth and final chapter also offers a biographical sketch of Francisco Imperial and an overview of the Imperiale family that are based in part on original documentation, allowing a new vantage point from which to appreciate the rich life circumstances that gave birth to a uniquely resonant poetic voice.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/195803
Date January 2010
CreatorsAquilano, Mark Thomas
ContributorsKinkade, Richard P., Fiore, Robert L., Williamsen, Amy R.
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Electronic Dissertation
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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