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Chapter 4 - Dreams and Female Initiation in Livistros and Rhodamne and Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2018

By
Efthymia Priki
Edited by
Adam J. Goldwyn  and
Ingela Nilsson
Adam J. Goldwyn
Affiliation:
North Dakota State University
Ingela Nilsson
Affiliation:
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden
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Summary

The first part of Livistros and Rhodamne and book I of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili explore how the male protagonists, Livistros and Poliphilo respectively, undergo a process of initiation in the mysteries of love preparing them for their union with the women they desire. Dreams provide the necessary ritual spaces where these initiation processes can be accomplished, but they also perform a mediating function in the relationship of the protagonist couples. Even though they belong to two different historical and socio-cultural contexts, the two texts present striking similarities in the initiation processes of their male protagonists, while, interestingly, they contain analogous processes for their female protagonists, Rhodamne and Polia. However, the dreams and visions of women in Livistros and Rhodamne and in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the women’s relationship with the dream lords, the gods of love, differ significantly from those of their male counterparts, making us question whether we can really define these processes as initiations or whether we should interpret them in a different way.
Type
Chapter
Information
Reading the Late Byzantine Romance
A Handbook
 , pp. 69 - 100
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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