%0 Journal Article %T La « laide vérité ». Le rêve de Cahus revisité %A Gorecka-Kalita, Joanna %J Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis %V 2018 %R 10.4467/20843933ST.18.002.8280 %N Volume 13, Issue 1 %P 15-24 %K Arthurian romance, Perlesvaus (Le Haut Livre du Graal), dream turning real, nightmare, phantasm, medieval dream theories, Macrobius, Augustine, divination %@ 1897-3035 %D 2018 %U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/studia-litteraria-uic/article/la-laide-verite-le-reve-de-cahus-revisite %X 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 13th century, within the context of the medieval dream theories. Inspired mostly by Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio – fo­cusing on the divinatory (or deceptive/ illusory) role of dreams – as well as by Tertullian’s and Augustine’s Christian reflections 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 signification. 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 specific Perlesvaus tone from the very beginning of the romance.